One sign of a good game is that it has appeal several years after it has been released. Such is the case with Zuma from Astraware, a mobile version of the popular action / puzzle game from Popcap Games. Addictive game play, intense challenge and a cool atmosphere make this an oldie but goodie that should be in your collection if it’s not already there.

While not necessarily by name, there’s a good chance you’ve played this game before. The basic idea is that you must clear away a chain of objects (in this case magic balls) before they reach a particular location (in Zuma this is a golden skull). In Zuma, you do this by shooting balls from the mouth of a giant frog in the center of the playing field. Once three or more balls of the same color are connected they will disappear, and the split portions of the chain will eventually reconnect, if you give them the chance. If the connection results in 3 or more balls of the same color connecting, they will disappear as well, and so on. This is a chain reaction. Chain reactions are a quick way to clear out lots of chain segments, so take advantage of this whenever possible. Once all segments of a chain – or multiple chains in later levels – are destroyed, the level is over. Each time a chain successfully reaches a golden skull you lose a life, and once all lives are gone the game is also over.

The biggest obstacle in the game is time itself. If you don’t create a lot of chain reactions it will simply take you longer to get rid of an entire group of balls, which could see your speed retirement from the temple clearing business. This is especially crucial when you’re dealing with two groups at the same time. Speaking of which, when you have more than one chain they often cross back and forth, potentially blocking a shot that you need to take. The other main hindrance is simply having the right colored ball to shoot at the right time. You always have one ball ready to fire and one ball waiting, but sometimes neither of those will be the right one to accomplish what you need. One thing that really got to me as an annoyance rather than an obstacle was the fact that completing a level, which might be comprised of several areas, was an all or nothing deal. I’m still on level four because I can’t beat 4-5, and honestly I’m kind of sick of playing level 4.

On the up side, as would be expected, there are things that will help make your life easier. For the most part these come in the form of power ups received for destroying certain balls. There’s a power up to slow down movement, one to stop movement temporarily, and one to even reverse movement for a little bit. There’s also a power up that will temporarily give you a line of site so you know where you’re firing the balls. Finally, one power up is a bomb that will actually destroy some balls around it when it explodes, even if they aren’t the same color. The one bonus that’s not really a power up is the fact that if you click on your frog, you can switch between the active ball and the one that’s waiting. This is often helpful, as there might not been any balls of the active color in any of the groups present on screen.

As expected, the graphics in Zuma are really good. The frog is well rendered and special effects surrounding events like balls disappearing and being blown up are good. When an area is cleared the frog quickly zooms up and down while the old track breaks apart and is replaced with a new one, which has the feeling of the old Super-NES mode 7 visuals. Thank you to those old enough to know what I’m talking about. The sound effects are pretty decent, especially when it comes to things like clearing the board. I really like the music. It provides great atmosphere and captures the essence of a wondrous ancient South American culture.

The realty is that Astraware has no equal in the mobile market when it comes to acquiring quality puzzle games. To me the ultimate proof of this is when you can play a game that is several years old and enjoy it just as much as the new games coming out. There are a couple of things like “windowed” mode and standard WinCE menus that somewhat date the game, but overall it’s every bit the enjoyable game now that I’m sure it was when it was first released. Zuma is a great action puzzle game that should be experienced by Astraware fans, puzzle game fanatics and casual gamers in general.

Overall Score: 8/10
Product Page: Zuma Home Page