A mobile game console isn't a mobile game console without a puzzler.  Tetris is what originally led the Game Boy to success – not Mario.  The console didn't launch with a new Mario title and did not have one for quite some time.  Although Mario was a powerful force for home consoles, Tetris was the king of the mobile scene.  To this day it is one of the few titles that women go crazy for.

As the puzzle genre continued to evolve several new kinds of games appeared.  While not hugely successful, all who played I.Q. for the PSone will never forget it (myself included).  Columns and Dr. Mario took the block-dropping style of Tetris in a whole other direction, and Tetris Attack took the genre to a whole new level.

Among those successful puzzlers was a game called Puzzle Bobble.  Like Tetris, Puzzle Bobble has seen many variations over the years (In North America it is most commonly seen in the form of Bust-A-Move).

Puzzle Bobble could be loosely described as an upside down version of Tetris but it's much more than that.  The gameplay exists within a rectangle that takes up about 45% of the screen.  A bigger sized rectangle isn't necessary since all of the action can be created without a large space.  This also made it easy for developers to add the must-have feature of split-screen multiplayer.  Puzzle games are fun to beat, but it's the multiplayer competition that really heats things up and is the only way to determine whether or not you truly are the best player.

Within the rectangle is a cluster of colored balls (blue, green, yellow, etc.).  Balls are Puzzle Bobble's answer to blocks; they are the life-force that keeps you alive.  If you don't have them, there's no game!  You've completed the level and move onto the next.  If you have too many of them, the screen fills up quickly and the game ends.  The cluster formation varies from level to level, making it difficult to just waltz in there and shoot your way to victory.  That's how you eliminate the balls – by shooting.  A small arrow-shaped ball projector is located at the bottom of the rectangle and can be moved from left to right to line up the best shot possible. 

Early on (when you're performing badly and the computer knows it), the game will aid you in your quest for bobble dominance by adding a visual aid to the ball projector.  Tiny dots go from the tip of the projector to wherever the projected ball will land.  This clears up any confusion that may have been had in trying to fire those tricky ricochet shots.  With the visual aid it's easy to see which part of the wall should be shot to make the ball bounce and land on the appropriate part of the cluster.

There is something bad that I have to tell you though, and although no pun is intended, I am still puzzled by it.  This game, despite playing almost exactly like Bust-A-Move (which I love) is one of the worst games you could buy for N-Gage.  All of those wonderful things I just said are a description of what both Puzzle Bobble and Bust-A-Move have to offer.

What I had not yet mentioned was the fact that this game moves like molasses.  It's slower than slow.  You'll be bored after the first five minutes of play.  For the sake of argument (and to prove myself wrong), I got out my wonderful copy of Super Bust-A-Move for Game Boy Advance.  The difference was immediately noticeable. Super Bust-A-Move – which runs on inferior hardware – moved super-fast.  Then I went back to Puzzle Bobble VS and nearly fell asleep.  I kept asking myself, "Is it really this slow or am I just imagining it?"  I wasn't imagining a thing.  I have never played a puzzle game that moved this slow before.  There's a lot of enjoyment to be had with the N-Gage, but if this were the first N-Gage title you played, you may never want to touch the system again.  That's something that no game should have the power to do.

Gameplay: 3
Super Bust-A-Move without the fun.  The gameplay moves slower than a car with no tires.  It'll put you to sleep, and if it doesn't do that, it'll ensue enough frustration to lead to defenestration.  You didn't pay $300 to play [enter a not-so-nice word here] like this.  No one did.

Graphics: 3
Blander than bland.  These graphics slightly attempt to utilize the N-Gage's power by having polygonal characters in the background.  If they were going to make the game look this bad they shouldn't have bothered adding polygons at all.

Sound: 4
The cutesy, happy-go-lucky music is less painful to hear than the graphics are to look at.  Shocking, isn't it?

Difficulty: Easy
It's too slow to be challenging.

Concept: 3
Pop Quiz: If you port an old game to the N-Gage and make it worse than it was before, what do you get?

A)      A disappointment.

B)      A sleep-inducer.

C)      A good way to kill time before dropping a bowling ball on your toe.

D)      All of the above.

Multiplayer: 3

Overall: 3
Gamers can argue about the titles that critics and their friends say they should buy, but is there ever an argument when it comes to the titles that you should stay away from?  Advice like this is given for a reason, and it's something I have not had to say about any other N-Gage title.  Puzzle Bobble VS is not super-fun, it's super-boring.  Soporific, if you will.  It's not even a little fun in the beginning.  And if you stick it out, guess what?  It doesn't get any better.