by Xauri'El Zwaan

Created on: January 24, 2008

BubbleWorld is a simplistic match game in which the player must save some ridiculously happy little cartoon critters trapped in bubbles which float gently around against a colourful background. Click on two matching characters to 'pop' the bubbles and score; the level is finished when you have cleared all the pairs away. Player must race against a time limit, with time penalties for mistakes and bonuses for saving highlighted targets. Bubbles sometimes begin flashing and you must quickly find the match before they burst. The difficulty slowly rises with methods like increasing the number of targets and adding bubbles in mid level, changing the visual style of the targets, varying bubbles in size or in colour, adding targets that look superficially similar, putting more targets in jeopardy and making the jeopardy period quicker, and removing sound cues. At later levels the cartoon characters suddenly become more realistic looking and there are a larger and larger variety of them to keep track of. The music is very annoying and I had to turn it off within the first few seconds of loading the game; the sound effects are not obtrusive but don't add a lot to the game either. This is designed as a family game and obviously geared towards very young children, and doesn't contain any elements that might be troubling to parents. The graphics are colourful and well rendered but some children might be traumatized by these critters with their staring eyes and toothy grimaces. Seriously, I understand that this game is just for little kids, but those animals look like they're on crack or something. Just looking at them gave me the heebie jeebies. There doesn't seem to be any loss condition; the game simply continues until you get tired of it and give up. I found this game extremely easy, and I didn't see a lot of replay value or incentive to come back to it. Little kids age 5-8 might enjoy it, but older children will probably just be annoyed by it. Personally I wouldn't want my kids playing with something so silly and saccharine; I would not purchase BubbleWorld for myself or for my children. Rating: 2 out of 5.

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