Circle Popper
Circle Popper is easily the most fun of the three games. It’s a fairly basic Bust-A-Move clone, where the object is to use a circle shooting gun to match 3 circles of like color in the hopes of clearing the screen before they all come crashing down on you. As such, the gameplay’s fairly rock solid, and while there’s no music to enhance the tension, I almost enjoy the Zen nature of a gentle ‘plop’ sound effect being the only accompaniment to your eradication of the circle menace. Crisp and colorful, it’s also a fairly pretty game and the best looking of the three.
However, Circle Popper also has control issues. The player has no control over when your circle gun shoots its payload (they’re shot after a set amount of time) and this poses quite a problem, as oftentimes the scrollwheel is not sensitive enough to move your gun to the appropriate angle before it prematurely splooges errant circles. This becomes a pain in the ass later on, as timing and accuracy become critical – which reminds me that the game also desperately needs a trajectory indicator, so you have a better chance of actually hitting what you think you’re aiming at. It’s not the worst thing you could have on your BlackBerry, though.
While not awe inspiring, Plazmic’s lineup of free games proves that, if anything, okay looking, vibration and sound enabled games can be done on the BB. They just need to be done better.
