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Genre: Game - Arcade Action

Developer: Mystery Studio

Publisher: PlayFirst, Inc.

Minimum System Requirements: Mac OS X, 400MHz G3, 128MB RAM

Price: $19.99

Demo: www.bigfishgames.com (13.4MB)

At Christmas, some parents like to put miniature, wrapped, cylindrical gifts on their children's dinner plates. If, like some children, you simply started to eat it, you would find that it tasted rather like paper, plastic, and, at one point, intensely like a trace of gunpowder. If, however, you followed the instructions you were given and yanked mightily on either end of the gift, it would tear apart with a satisfying pop, and the contents would spill out onto your plate. Always, you would receive a paper crown and a separate gift; a plastic spider ring, a slide whistle, or perhaps a miniature card trick would accompany your crown, and you could perform royal card tricks, or royal whistle songs, or royal spider shows for whomever would look your way for the rest of the evening.

These gifts are called "poppers." Pirate Poppers, unfortunately, has precious little to do with these childhood treats, so clearly I've entirely mis-started the review, and should be forced to start over. Well, mis-started with the exception of the presence of small explosions at various times, that is. So, still, not even close. An unfortunate beginning all in all. Entirely unfortunate, except that Pirate Poppers and Christmas poppers do share the occasional occurrence of falling baubles such as goblets, crowns, and rings. And then there is, of course, the whole apparent meaninglessness of it all. Why blow up presents at Christmas dinner? Why seek crowns and card tricks and while away an hour with diversions that others see as trivial? Why explode cannon balls as they roll along the pathway toward your barrel?

Why? Well, why not?

Widening the scope of games in the "combine things so they blow up" category, Pirate Poppers gets some things right, and confounds the gamer with its minor quirks and strategy-killers. Each screen opens with a blank "pathway" that twists around the screen, ultimately ending at a barrel. From the far end comes a series of cannonballs of various colors. Able to scroll across the bottom of the screen, you are tasked with blasting a colored cannonball into the procession, in an effort to combine three or more like-colored cannonballs. When this happens, they explode. If you are fortunate, the balls on either side are of a matching color, and you can create a combination explosion that raises your score and causes the whole path of cannonballs to recede, allowing you some time to breathe and plan your next shot. At each level, three or more series of cannonballs are released, and advance at slightly greater speeds, so progress becomes more and more difficult as the game moves along.

A twist on the game that complicates it is, literally, a twist. The pathway will often double back over or under itself, or pass under a bridge or tress, so aiming and timing your shot becomes more difficult. Also, straight stretches of the pathway will often descend toward the bottom, so you have no good angle at which to blast your cannon. But all is not hopeless.

Two tools at your disposal to assist you when the time is right to shoot are the crosshairs and the switcher. The crosshairs are always present, so you're not forced to guess where your cannonball will go when you shoot it, though sometimes in the higher rounds even the nearly instantaneous blast does not get it where you aimed. Like in many games of this type, you can see the next colored cannonball you will shoot. A right-click allows you to switch to that waiting cannonball, allowing you some opportunity to set up double and (on occasion) triple explosions.

Additionally, combination explosions or particularly large explosions release bonus items that boost your score or assist you in other ways. One item breezes the cannonballs momentarily backward, toward the opening. Another provides a chameleon ball that will match whatever best helps you in the area where you blast it. A third provides a cannonball that, frankly, is more cannonball than the others: it simply blows up everything in its path to the top of the screen. Still another provides a precise pointer to assist your crosshairs for precision placement of each shot for a few seconds. Six power-ups are available as you advance through the island chain.

When you complete a row of cannonballs, one of eight treasures falls from the final cannonball. One of your tasks is to catch each of the eight different treasures as you progress through the game. You fill your pirate cave with bootie as you process through the island chains in a loose story line that has you pursuing the lost treasure of Isla Calavara across 77 boards.

A free online only version is available at PlayFirst. You can download a 60 minute trial or purchase the full game at PlayFirst or Big Fish Games to access all 77 levels. All versions allow you to play the game in three forms: arcade, adventure, or puzzle.

Download the free demo.