It takes the tried and true Bust a Move gameplay and turns it on it's head. Literally.
Anyway, when I finally got to this it was almost immediately recognizable once I got into the game, other than the way you launch the balls it's basically Bust a Move with a story mode and all that (which I'll get to in a bit). And I was quite surprised by what I played, when the trial ran out I spend 80 of the last 200 points I had on me at the time and played. Now, this isn't the type of game that I will sit down and play for hours on end anymore, I tend to use them as more of a "play for a few minutes, quit. play a little, quit". That's how it works with most puzzle games for me.
The presentation of this game is pretty good, and it gives a nice chance to the typical way you would play a game like this. You hold down the A button, and your little alien/robot guy will press a button. You charge that shot to send it where it needs to go. And it works surprisingly well. The Easy mode gives you infinite lives, an infinite launch time to think out your shots and a handy-dandy guide that tells you roughly where the ball is going to land. Medium gives you 5 lives, a 10 second shot timer and the guide lasts for 10 balls. Hard gives you 3 lives, a 5 second shot timer and never gives you a guide. But don't worry about it too much, you play through it on Easy and you'll pretty well get how to launch the balls.
And this game has a story mode! Granted, it isn't much, but it's there. Aliens run out of gas, then get sucked into the orbit of (I think) it's Earth then go mining for fuel while others fix the ship. And that's where the gameplay comes in. Mining for fuel by matching blocks. Yeah, it's a stupid story but hey. At least it's there. My only complaint about the story mode is that it's dead short for each playthrough. The reason I say each playthrough is because you have different paths you can go throughout the game, which really adds to the replay value. But I personally would've liked to have seen a HUGE story mode, even if the story itself kinda sucks.
Then there's an Arcade mode, which I don't fully get because it seems like it's just the story mode all over again. Though I'm sure I'm missing something. Then a mode that helped me out a lot … PRACTICE. :) Where you get to practice every stage you've been on, which was an immense help with some of the later stages that get surprisingly difficult.
Throughout the game you can get various powerups that are pretty typical to games like this. Universal wild card color balls, a blank ball that when hit changes the color of all the other blanks to whatever color you hit it with. Balls that make the stage go up and down, bombs, balls that are unusable until you match 3 around them, etc. And they all work great for their levels and tend to make a lot of sense and changes the game considerably. I would've liked it better if you could LAUNCH these powerups like the wild card, but hey. Can't win 'em all.
The graphics are great. Your little alien dude in the corner animates pretty decently and has different things he does. Like he'll roll his eyes when you're taking too long, a cheesy little clap when you match some of the balls. A freaked out expression when the stage starts getting near the top. The backgrounds look awesome and are drawn extremely well. The sound, for the effects that are there (you honestly don't need much in a game like this) sound pretty good and completely appropriate and, thankfully, didn't drive me up the wall. The music fits the tone of the game perfectly and isn't annoying like in some games like this.
7.5 – The only thing I can fault this for is the disappointingly short story mode. But the game being only 80 points, that's completely forgivable. If you like Bust a Move style games, give this a shot. There isn't any multiplayer play unfortunately, and the score keeping is local only, but the addictiveness holds up and is a great change-up from the regular "point and launch" style gameplay that doesn't take all that long at all to get the hang of.