Bust-A-Move has been released on several platforms over the years, but the core of the game is usually similar: You take a rectangular ’puzzle field’ like Tetris, and are faced with a series of colored bubbles attached to the ceiling. Rather than trying to make lines, you’re tasked with shooting bubbles at this mass, eliminating them when you manage to connect three or more of the same color. It’s a basic idea and one you’ll learn quickly, but it remains a decent game even today.

It’s hard to say what the main draw of this game is, because they offer something for everyone. There are over a hundred single-player stages you can complete, each getting progressively harder. But if you’re not after that, maybe you want Infinite mode where you cannot truly beat the stage, you just keep playing against more and more descending bubbles until you lose. Versus play is also accounted for, as you can go up against the CPU in a game where making enough matches will launch various bubbles and other debris into your opponent’s field, simultaneously giving him more ammo to attack with and bringing him closer to defeat.

But as you might expect from an Xbox Live Arcade game, Bust-A-Move Live offers online play. It’s simply versus play against a human rather than the computer, but this is still an excellent selling point. The online play works fairly well, and seems to be reasonably well populated; I was able to find an opponent after only a few minutes of searching at midnight. These bouts are done in a best two out of three format, and they’re good fun.

While various special bubbles are present, they don’t make the game particularly complex. The in-game help files will let you figure most of them out, or simple trial and error can work as well. They nonetheless add some decent depth to the game, though most of them seem to be returning from previous games in the series. Beyond these additions however, Bust-A-Move Live mostly plays like its peers; quick to learn, but it places a strong emphasis on excellent aim and forward thinking.

At 800 Microsoft Spacebucks/$10, Bust-A-Move Live is priced ’just right.’ It’s a simple but genuinely fun game, and offers a reasonable amount of offline content. Its online versus play is perfectly acceptable, and that makes it a complete package well worth picking up.