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Bomberman: Act Zero Review
review
game: Bomberman: Act Zero
one star
posted by: Sean Hilliard
publisher: Konami
developer: Hudson Soft
genre:
platform:
keywords:
date posted: 02:06 PM Thu Dec 7th, 2006
last revision: 02:06 PM Thu Dec 7th, 2006


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Click to read.Konami and Hudson Soft (the publisher and developer of Bomberman: Act Zero, respectively) owe the gamers of the world an apology for turning one of the most classic game heroes of all time into a freaky robot monster that throws bombs. Why update one of gaming\'s most endearing characters? And, on top of that, why do it in such a terrible way? Instead of the cute, cartoony Bomberman, we have a sci-fi inspired robotic creature. But besides that, they ruined everything else about the game, too. Gameplay, graphics, sound, all trashed.

The whole package just reeks of lack of polish.

The dev team at Hudson Soft have taken a hokey story and applied it to a classic franchise, making Bomberman escape from some 99-level-deep lair so he can finally make it to the regular world and ? ZZZZZZZZZ.

Bomberman doesn\'t need a story. Just give us more of that twitchy bomb-the-bejeesus-out-of-our-opponents gameplay that we all know and love. Simply adding a story wouldn\'t have slowed things down much if they\'d left the gameplay intact, but they even messed that up.

The regular game is played from a 2-D view from above, where you run around trying to hit your opponent with a single bomb blast to win the level. Fine. But apparently that gets old way before level 99, so instead of tweaking the level design and adding new elements (besides different powerups) they made FPB (and no that doesn\'t stand for anything dirty) ? First Person Bomberman.

And that label is totally misleading. Because it isn\'t even first person, it\'s from a third person perspective from behind the back of Bomberman, and on top of that, makes it practically impossible to see what in the world you\'re doing.

Then, to make that even more messed up, they give you a life bar. A LIFE BAR! Bomb blasts aren\'t survivable, people. But in Bomberman you can survive a number of bomb blasts without dying, which makes the multiplayer practically impossible to win. This is because there can be multiple opponents running around planting bombs, which sounds cool in theory, but really is a recipe for getting hit with your own bomb blast.

That isn\'t fun.

Single player Bomberman, which I already mentioned, is made up of 99 levels. With no saves. No extra lives. No chance of success.

And since the story is so captivating that you\'re going to want to beat all of those levels (sense my sarcasm?), you\'ll have to do it in one sitting. Blech. The lack of a save feature in a modern game is simply amazing.

The graphics, for a next-gen game, are surprisingly poor and uninspired. Every level looks like it was plopped together haphazardly. The levels all have the same drab, dark look, and never seem to offer much in terms of creativity.

The bleeps and bloops that we remember from the classic Bomberman games have been replaced with stock sounds, weak bomb blasts and the same narrator for every item pick-up and level ending.

In the end, Bomberman: Act Zero, is simply that ? the act of zeroes. That\'s what its score should be and that\'s how many people should buy it.

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