Bubble in Paradise™ Review

By , on February 21, 2012


Bubble in Paradise™
Download on the AppStore
3 out of 5

PROS

  • A vast dictionary, allowing words most only games of this type don't.
  • Relaxing music as you play.

CONS

  • A lot of unlocks leading to not much of a change in gameplay.
  • The tutorial keeps interrupting your play long after you get the gist of the game.

VERDICT

You pop bubbles to form words. There are power-ups and a host of unlocks that lead to content that doesn't feel too far removed from the initial level. For fans of word games.


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With word games, there are generally two kinds. Your slow and steady searching for the best use of available letters before letting fly, and the fast paced create any word that pops into your head immediately before the timer runs down. Bubbles in Paradise is the latter with the addition of the letters themselves being in expanding bubbles that need to be popped as soon as possible, because the longer these letters stay on the screen, the larger the bubbles get, leaving less room for that elusive vowel or consonant you're waiting on to create your super word of doom.

Like a lot of word games, tapping is the control scheme of the day here. The bubbles float upwards from the bottom of the screen and to form a word you tap the letters you want in succession. If you tap a wrong letter or aren't happy with your word, you can either reverse your taps on the bubbles to remove letters or tap the word at the top of the screen to start anew. During play you'll uncover power-ups to aid or hinder you that are triggered by using that letter in a word. This is also how stars, the game's unlock currency are obtained.

Each new mode of play or level is only unlocked when a certain number of stars have been collected. A few stars will show up in each game you play, but be quick to tap them and use them in a word for they fly off the screen quickly. While the numbers needed to unlock these modes aren't ludicrous, they can be high for what is essentially the same game as the first level in normal mode with a tiny change to the gameplay. The only real worthwhile mode is battle, where you can play a friend or stranger head to head to test who has the greater vocabulary, and luckily this mode is one of the early unlocks.

Like many word games, Bubbles in Paradise will amuse fans of the genre but the pacing and unlocking won't please a larger audience, even though it might be fun for a short play. It's up to your own discretion here folks.

Screenshots

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