Bust A Move 3 DX

Following a six month hiatus from bubble-blowing duty, Bub and Bob, the doe-eyed cuddly dragons of Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands fame, have returned to save Bubble Land again. This is the N64's second incursion into the psychedelic realms of Bubble World, and blow me, it leaves the last one rather deflated by comparison.

We couldn't help but rave about the virtues of the last game, and rightly so; it was poptastic, addictive gaming at its best. Bust-A-Move 3DX, it could be argued, is essentially more of the same, but on the PlayStation, number four in the series is proving that the evergreen puzzle-fest is as popular now as it ever was. In other words, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

That's not to say improvements have been neglected. It's an ongoing tradition with puzzlers to keep the same delicious ingredients that made the original a classic and subtly, almost seamlessly, add new and improved features. This is precisely what Acclaim has achieved with BAM 3DX.

Poppers

Unless you've had your head buried in the sand for the last few years, or suffer from chronic amnesia, you'll have heard of the BAM series. For the benefit of those five people who haven't, it's a diabolically simple concept. Fire your bubble gun at the stack of multicoloured bubbles before they drop off the 'deadline' at the bottom. And that's it!

There are a few conditions of course, the most important one of which is that you need to connect three or more bubbles of the same colour in order to burst them. This is hardly pushing the N64 to its limits, but just try putting the controller down after you've had a few goes. It's fiendishly addictive – so much so that any semblance of a social life will be left battered and bruised in no time. With six modes of play, BAM 3DX keeps a vice-like grip on your attention. Arcade mode is an exact translation of the BAM3 arcade machine and consists of Puzzle mode, where you're offered a choice of routes for every five rounds, Player versus Computer and Player versus Player. The latter is the most fun – players must eliminate as many bubbles as possible or drop them into their opponent's playfield. The trick is to try and pop a cluster of bubbles high up on the stack, because any others that are tenuously attached below will drop too.

Bubble-icious

It's the inclusion of the all-singing multiplayer mode which catapults BAM 3DX into bubble heaven. It's painful on the eyes though – we felt more like physics students watching little coloured atoms floating around than games journos. Grasping a well-worn cliché firmly by the danglies, it's easy to play but hard to master. BAM 3DX just demands to be replayed and the fruits of your labour appear almost subliminally. For instance, angling shots off walls makes a hell of a difference, as does checking which bubble comes next and firing rapidly. The final two modes, Collection and Edit, provide endless hours of entertainment too. The former provides over a thousand amateur screens devised by fans, and the latter is only limited by your imagination.

Other than to people who are colour blind, we simply can't recommend Bust-A-Move 3DX high enough. It's a puzzle fan's dreams made real and great value at just 40 nicker – it's bubblier than Barbara Windsor!