The Corner Penthouse

If you read my review of Super Bust-A-Move 1 for the Playstation 2 you'd know that I gave it a very bad review. Simply put, it's the worst Bust-A-Move game ever as it is broken in every possible way.

I went into Super Bust-A-Move 2 expecting the same thing, hoping for marginally better. How pleasantly surprised I was to find that nearly everything wrong with Super Bust-A-Move has been fixed, resulting in a game that is one of the best in the series.

GAMEPLAY MODES

Here's what you've got:

– Story Mode (1 player)
– 1 Player Puzzle: Training / Normal / Classic
– Battle Mode – CPU Battle: Normal / Expert / Chain Reaction (1 player vs. computer)
– Battle Mode – 2 Player Battle: Normal / Expert / Chain Reaction (player vs. player)
– Edit Mode: Edit / Play / Save / Load (create your own puzzles)

The Story and Edit modes were absent in Super Bust-A-Move, and I'm very happy to see them return.

CONTROLS

Unlike Super Bust-A-Move, the controls are pretty quick to respond (which is a MUST for this type of game). However, they seem to be a tad slower than Bust-A-Move '99 & 4 (both for the Playstation 1). It's not a very big problem because they still respond very well.

GRAPHICS

The annoying and distracting backgrounds from Super Bust-A-Move have been toned down. They are now static and not in any way annoying or distracting. Thank Goodness!

The bubbles, too, have been toned down from what they were in Super Bust-A-Move. They are all regular size and it's easy to quickly tell them apart


MISCELLANEOUS

The plethora of long loading screens from Super Bust-A-Move are a thing of the past. While the one at the very beginning of the game is a bit longer than it should be, most of the loadings are 1 second long or less.

The only thing they didn't fix from Super Bust-A-Move are the characters. We still have a bunch of Pokemon rejects. I wish they would have put back all the cool characters from the Playstation 1 Bust-A-Move games. Oh, well. At least the characters aren't a very important part of the game (you can ignore them easily).

WHICH BUST-A-MOVE TO GET?

There are three good Bust-A-Move games that you can play on a Playstation 2. In all honesty, I can't recommend one over the other because each one has something unique that the other two don't have. If it helps, here's a quick comparison:

• Bust-A-Move '99 (PS1) - Basic puzzle play, Win Contest (continuous 1 player vs. comp), Collection (user created puzzles), no Story Mode.
• Bust-A-Move 4 (PS1) - Adds pulleys to the puzzles, no Win Contest, no Collection.
• Super Bust-A-Move 2 (PS2) - Adds conveyor belt walls and all sorts of unique bubbles to the puzzles, no Win Contest, no Collection.

All three have Edit mode and the rest of the mandatory puzzle modes.

If you're a die-hard Bust-A-Move fan, I'd say buy all three (that's what I plan on doing). If you're unsure if which to buy, rent all three and see which one you like the best.