Funnily enough, that pretty much sums up the gameplay of
Spin Jam. It's nothing really special, but it sure as hell is nice. And if you're a puzzle fan, you absolutely can't go wrong with this budget-priced title. Hell, even if you're not, you can afford to pick it up.
Spin Jam consists of bubbles, or some close approximation thereof. You shoot them and attach them to a central cog, which you can rotate. They also fly in from the edges of the playfield at the higher game levels. The object is to get enough of them together so that they'll pop. Whenever this happens, the bubbles on the opposite side of the cog launch into space. If they touch petal-shaped objects that match their colors, or are rainbow-colored, they get stuck in the petal. Enough bubbles in the petals and the petal pops. Pop all the petals in the level and you proceed to the next one. Like all good puzzle games, Spin Jam takes a simple play mechanic and makes an art form out of it.
Of course, it's more complex than that. There are all sorts of crazy special bubbles that blow up entire sections (good!), or randomized bubbles (bad!). There's also the whole poisonous bubble bit. If a bubble gets attached to the spindle that hangs out into 'space,' it becomes poisonous. This poison creeps towards the center of the spindle. If it gets there before it's eliminated (launching the poisoned bubbles into the air does that), you lose the game. Of course, it's often hard as hell to launch said bubbles, so you've got to get cracking if you don't want to die.
There are plenty of play modes. You can play in Arcade mode, where you must beat more than eighty levels of bubble-popping action. Sometimes the petals rotate, other times they're of colors you definitely don't want. As you complete the levels, parts of a picture of the character you're playing as appear in the Gallery. It's useless, but little added features are always cool. There's also a Story mode, where you go against the other Jammers, and a Versus mode where you can play against a friend. In all of the cases, getting a poison bubble to the center of the spinner loses the game.
What more can one say? In action-puzzle games like this and Tetris, only so much can be said about how the game plays. You learn best by getting into the game and blasting away for a few hours. And that's very easy to do with Spin Jam.
