Most puzzle games are basically the same, when you think about it. The goal is to group matching items to remove them from play before they reach a boundary and thus end the game. AstroPop follows this precedent, but with some unique twists. For starters, the pieces are upside down from the tradition puzzle game, there are four different space pilots to play as, they all have a special move and you can gather power ups from the playing field that affect the pieces. All of this adds up to a unique and fun experience, although don't rush out and buy it just yet...

The basic concept isn't that basic at all. On the bottom potion of the playing field is a ship that you control by sliding it from left to right (there's no up and down movement, you always stay at the bottom, Space Invaders style). At the top of the screen is a wall of coloured bricks that slowly makes its way down towards you, and if it gets beyond the danger threshold, which is practically on top of your ship, then it's game over! Your goal is to grab pieces with your ship's energy beam and place them somewhere else on the board with the intent of putting four or more pieces of the same colour in contact with each other to clear them away. If you clear pieces out from above some others, the pieces below them fall upwards (the gravity is reversed!) and can create large combos, much like nearly every other puzzle game ever made, so you should have a good idea of how that works. Using the R and L triggers to grab and release (or the face buttons if you prefer), the game can move at a very rapid pace, depending on how quick you are and if you know where you want to put the pieces. Your ship's magnet can hold up to six pieces of the same colour at once, so it's possible to gather a large amount and send them back, exploding instantly, or just move a couple and release them into a big group of similar colours.

As you progress, you'll discover there's a lot more to AstroPop than you first realised. Soon you'll find stones on the field that you can't pick up with your ship, power ups that freezes the board so other pieces can't come in for a short time and special bricks that clear out an entire row or column instantly. There are also explosive bricks that destroy all nearby pieces or a brick that completely removes a certain colour from the playing field. When all these powers ups are combined, you can get some great strategy going, such as using a column-breaker to hit a row-breaker buried in the field, which in turn hits a colour explosion piece and makes a massive combo that removes almost all the pieces from play. Combos can be set up as well, but that is a skill that takes a lot of time to learn, especially when the game moves as fast as it does in the later levels.

There are even more power ups to be found, including a poison brick that poisons any piece it touches for too long, rendering useless until it's removed (which can only be done by clearing bricks directly touching it) and a power up that makes every piece of one colour energised, resulting in small explosions when cleared that take out nearby bricks as well. The ultimate power ups, however, belong to each individual character. Throughout gameplay, a meter on the left side of the screen fills up, and once it's ready you can unleash your character's SUPA weapon (I wouldn't be caught dead saying that out loud. Because, you know, I'd be dead...), which varies from pilot to pilot. Vector, the lead character, uses a simple energy beam that breaks apart any brick it touches. Another pilot, Sprocket, randomly selects bricks on screen to take out, with the hope the remaining bricks will collapse and form combos, which is a more strategic but solely based on luck attack. The two unlockable characters, Vixx and Turbot, have more strategic weapons; Vixx's allows you to auto target any blocks you want and destroy them, which is handy if you can spot combo chains or know how to create them very well. Turbot's special is less powerful, as it only freezes the screen and removes harmful bricks, but is helpful nevertheless.

The Story mode lasts as long as you can extend it, but the actual storyline ends around level 32. Every character has text-based cut scenes that all intertwine together, and though it's nothing special, it's nice to see some story and characters put into a puzzle game like this. Every four levels you get a checkpoint and a weapon upgrade, plus there are also some bonus puzzle challenges thrown into the mix for good measure. Playing with the different characters offers no changes outside of the weapon abilities, but it is a handy way for the developers to add some longevity to the game; especially when one of the achievements is to complete 32 levels with all four of them - not an easy task, especially near the higher levels.

The only other mode in AstroPop is a very challenging Survival mode that you'll be fortunate to be able to make last for five minutes - the world record is a mere thirteen minutes, with the mode containing two achievements: one for surviving five minutes and one for nine minutes. This mode is fun if you're into survival modes, but be warned that it picks up pace very quickly. The rest of the achievements in AstroPop are quite challenging to get; there're some easy ones, like unlocking characters, earning an easy 25,000 points, and... well, that's about it. The rest include beating 32 levels without using your SUPA weapon once, clearing the screen of blocks 5 times in one match, completing a level in 25 seconds or less, beating all 10 puzzle challenges, getting a huge combo, clearing 100,000 bricks total, and so forth. Trust me, some of those are not as easy as they sound!

Graphically AstroPop is good, with some quirky character designs and superb explosion effects for the bricks. Mixed with some great sound effects, the only real flaw graphically or on the audio-side is the music, which is so quiet and repetitive that you either won't notice it, or you'll notice it right away and decide to get a custom soundtrack playing.

AstroPop is a unique experience, but as it only features a repetitive story mode, with each character playing identically, and a short survival mode, it hurts the replay value, even if the main goal is to complete 32 levels of the story with everyone. There are some great puzzles, but you have to play through the story mode to complete them, and if you fail, you have to just hope that you get the same puzzle again next time. A separate, giant puzzle mode like Bejeweled 2's excellent take on this would've been perfect, but alas, nothing like that is here.

The cute characters, quirky storyline and unusual approach to the genre make AstroPop a blast for a while, but you'll be unlikely to want to play it for more than short bursts. If you purchase it, there's no doubt it'll become one of those games you put on quickly between other games and progress through at a very slow pace, which isn't really a bad thing, as that is sort of what the Arcade is all about, anyway. The only thing really holding me back from flat-out recommending this to puzzle fans is the fact that Lumines Live! is right around the corner, with a whopping 1200 price tag and major download content support. If you have the points to spare though, AstroPop is a safe buy for those looking for a good puzzle game with a unique concept.

Reviewed by Christopher Martin for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).