Bust-A-Move Islands: Mourning the Loss of a Fairly Average Freemium Game
Why Jen is annoyed she can't enjoy comfort gaming.
We all have guilty pleasures, right? In every form of media, there’s a kind of comfort in certain things. For instance, I’ve been playing World of Warcraft since the very beginning. There are areas of Azeroth that I know better than areas around where I live. There are TV shows that I know word for word. It’s nice to enjoy some familiarity, even if your inner snob knows there’s better out there.
That’s how I felt about Bust-A-Move Islands. It wasn’t the best of games but it was simple to dip into and enjoy. It became a game I could play while watching TV, working my way through levels. I could never get past a level in the mid 120s but I didn’t mind. Sometimes, I’d go back to the beginning instead. It wasn’t a clever game but it was fun.
At some point, a message came up warning that the servers would be shut down in the middle of June, and that’s when I remembered why free to play games have a considerable flaw. They can just shut down and that’s it. I got a reprieve, though. Bust-A-Move Islands didn’t actually stop working until now, at the beginning of July. I still feel a bit cheated.
It never came out on the UK App Store so I couldn’t buy any in-app purchases, but I would have if I could, and that money really would have gone nowhere in the end. But that’s not what I’m grumpy about.
I’m grumpy that I can’t just keep playing. I don’t need regular support - I just want the game to play. It’s only 6 months old and I want to be able to play it like I can still play its distant older relative on the original Playstation. I’ve tried other bubble shooting game and they’re just not the same or as good. Other games in the Bust-a-Move series are a bit of a mess, in fact.
I know one day my beloved World of Warcraft will suffer a similar fate, but at least I’ll have had over a decade with it. 6 months, though? I hardly knew ye, Bust-A-Move Islands. And that just doesn’t feel good enough.
Bust-A-Move Islands
FREE!
