Pop A Tronic Puzzle Game Review and Game Download
Game Review by Tim Peters
Game Rating = 2/5 Balls
(Windows)
Download Free Game Trial 10.67 Mb
Buy The Game Now $19.99
(Mac)
Download Free Game Trial 16.91 Mbs
Buy The Game Now $19.99
What do you do when you’re out of ideas? Steal someone else’s and put a fresh coat of paint on it. That’s exactly what Big Blue Bubble has done with Pop-A-Tronic. While the home chemistry lab-inspired look of this puzzle game is nice, its slow pace and rehashed ideas aren’t enough to recommend it over its numerous and far superior clones.
(Windows)
Download Free Game Trial 10.67 Mb
Buy The Game Now $19.99
(Mac)
Download Free Game Trial 16.91 Mbs
Buy The Game Now $19.99
There are five game modes, but it’s impossible to see anything but Marathon Mode in the 60-minute trial version. That’s because you can’t unlock the next game mode (which in this case is Puzzle Mode) until you get five high scores in Marathon Mode. For a game that already doesn’t offer much, limiting prospective customers’ choices to the most overplayed variant of the bunch does nothing to show off what makes Pop-A-Tronic different enough to warrant its $19.99 price tag. The inclusion of unlockable content is admirable, but implementing it this way just makes the game more tedious.
(Windows)
Download Free Game Trial 10.67 Mb
Buy The Game Now $19.99
(Mac)
Download Free Game Trial 16.91 Mbs
Buy The Game Now $19.99
Marathon Mode is relatively simple. All you have to do is click on connected groups of at least three bubbles of the same color to make them disappear. Let the screen fill up with bubbles and the game ends. Power-ups such as bombs and color-switchers are there to help you out, but the game moves so slowly for the first 10 levels that it’s a chore to plod through them to get to the challenging parts. It would be one thing if you could select a starting level, but to be forced to go through that excessively long warm-up period each time you play Marathon Mode just drags Pop-A-Tronic down that much further.
(Windows)
Download Free Game Trial 10.67 Mb
Buy The Game Now $19.99
(Mac)
Download Free Game Trial 16.91 Mbs
Buy The Game Now $19.99
The game has a nice look, with the playing field consisting of wooden boards, bubbling beakers, and high-tech industrial bubbles and power-ups. Everything looks like it pops, falls, and zaps rather nicely. However, while the sound effects are okay (consisting primarily of pops, springy noises, and explosions), the music is terrible. The three main tracks are annoying synthesized techno-pop beats melded with the cheesiest of cheesy 70’s disco funk. The third tune in Marathon Mode sounds like something you’d hear from a sick robotic cat.
(Windows)
Download Free Game Trial 10.67 Mb
Buy The Game Now $19.99
(Mac)
Download Free Game Trial 16.91 Mbs
Buy The Game Now $19.99
Virtually everything about Pop-A-Tronic has been recycled without so much as an innovation. Worse, the trial mode - the best sales pitch of every shareware game - showcases only one selling point: it looks good. Maybe if the other four modes were accessible during Pop-A-Tronic’s trial period, there might be more to recommend it than its art style. As it is, this game ranks disappointingly at a 2 out of 5.
System Requirements
OS: Windows 2000 Windows XP Windows Me Windows Vista
Memory: 128 MB
DirectX: 9.0 or later
CPU: P600
System Requirements
OS: Mac OS X 10.4+
Big Blue Bubble created Pop A Tronic.
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