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WiiWare: Bomberman Blast Visuals

Tim Grube — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 14:58:53 -0500

Bomberman Blast is shaping up quite nicely and today Hudson Soft released nine screenshots for your viewing enjoyment. Bomberman Blast will be a digital download on WiiWare and features 8-person online multiplayer.

Launch Gallery: Bomberman Blast

(9 images)

Bomberman Land Gone Gold

Solomon Lee — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 15:06:07 -0600

Hudson Entertainment has announced that Bomberman Land for the Wii and PSP as well as Bomberman Land Touch! 2 for the DS have both gone gold respectively. The games are scheduled to ship to North American retailers on January 29 with a price tag of $29.99.

Check the link to visit the official site.

Third Bomberman Live DLC On Its Way

Solomon Lee — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 22:34:32 -0600

Hudson Entertainment has announced the third update for Bomberman Live with the Bomb-Up Pack 3 coming to the Xbox Live network.

Quoth from the press release, the new add-on pack features the following extras:

Ten New Characters - With new characters like "Shinobi Bomb" the ninja and "Bomb2-D2" the robot, players can customize their in-game Bomberman in even more new ways.
Two Additional Levels - New arenas include "Cavity Land," a sugary sweet candy land, and the industrial "Robot Factory." Both levels allow users to select any gimmick to use.
One New Game Mode - In "Friendly Fire," there's no place to hide as you race to get the most frags. Players start with the "power bomb" power-up and hard blocks are replaced by holes, leaving nothing to stop explosions, except Bombermen!
Two New Leaderboards - Gaze down upon the Bomberman masses from atop two new ranking systems on the Xbox LIVE network. The new leaderboards will track performance on both a weekly and an all-time basis for the new "Friendly Fire" game mode.

The Bomb-Up Pack 3 will be released on December 26 for 250 Microsoft Points.

Bomberman: Act Zero Website Launches

The Gaming Horizon Archive — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 09:28:00 -0600

This article was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Certain formatting, imaged, and embedded content may have been lost in the transition process.The original author is Olly Dean.

Nothing has been seen of Bomberman: Act Zero since it was briefly announced at last years Tokyo Game Show in trailer form, but Hudson Soft has now launched the Japanese website which you can find here.The website is all in Japanese but it includes several screenshots of the new first-person bombing perspective (also available below), as well as the TGS trailer for download. Well bring you more information on this interesting change to the Bomberman formula as it becomes available.

GH Review: Bomberman DS (DS)

The Gaming Horizon Archive — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 01:05:00 -0500

This review was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Its format does not match our own but we support its content. It was written by Aaron Thomas.

Bomberman has made an appearance on just about any system you can think of. The GBA, Saturn, Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, PlayStation, Dreamcast, and many others have played host to the mad bomber, and now hes making his first appearance on the Nintendo DS. Bomberman DS is classic Bomberman in all aspects the single-player mode is a tad boring, and the multiplayer mode is a blast.

The Bomberman series has remained largely unchanged over the years. Sure there have been attempts to modernize the graphics, and even the gameplay, but the core of the game has remained unchanged. You control Bomberman, a cute little spaceman-looking guy, who is in a maze-like area. His one task is to blow up all obstacles and creatures in his path. The action is viewed from an isometric perspective, and the game uses both screens for larger than normal levels. There are tons of power-ups that will increase your speed, the speed at which bombs can be placed, shields, extra health, and bigger and badder bombs. The multiplayer mode pits you against your friends in a frantic contest of blowing everyone else up, while trying to avoid being blown up yourself. Its a simple concept, and thats its charm almost anyone can pick it up and play.

The DS version of Bomberman does little to mess with the series successful formula, but it does throw a few new things into the mix. For starters, up to eight people can play the game at once, and all you need is a single cartridge. Since the game is best when played with friends, its great that Hudson made it so easy to get your game on. Bomberman takes advantage of the DS abilities in a number of ways. Instead of instantly using a power-up when its picked up, the item is stored and shown on the bottom screen. When you want to use it, all you have to do is tap the item and it is activated. This new item system may not seem like anything major, but its very easy to use, and having to manage your items throws an interesting wrinkle into the gameplay.

The graphics are crisp and clear, but they certainly arent pushing the DS hardware. Bombermans a simple game, so theres really no need for fancy graphics, so in this case, simple is better. Its easy to tell players apart, and if youre colorblind like me, you can hit the shoulder button to see the name of each person running around so you dont blow up your teammates.

Although its not much more than a novelty, Bomberman uses the DS microphone to let you detonate bombs via voice command. Its easy to imagine the fun words you can use to set off bombs when playing against friends. I enjoy BAM! although many people will certainly find other, more colorful terms to be sure.

The only real knock against the game is that the single-player mode is dull and repetitive. The save system doesnt allow you to save after every level, so you have to re-do much of your progress if you run out of lives. There is a quick save mode that lets you quickly save if you have to turn the system off, but when you die, you revert to the last true save point.

The games balance during single-player is also a little uneven. You can save your power-ups, which makes some stages easier than they should be, but also makes some tougher than they should be if you run out of items. The boss battles are particularly difficult if you run out of items, and are so frustrating that turning off the game and starting from your last save point is generally the best alternative.

Last but most important the game is designed for multiplayer, and is pretty dull otherwise. Theres nothing wrong with a game being designed for multiple players but its important to know that you wont have the same experience playing alone.

If you have three or more friends that own a DS, then theres no reason in the world that one of you shouldnt own this game. Very few games are so easy to pick up and play, very few are this addictive, and very few provide such great multiplayer competition. Why is the score not higher? Not everyone has people to play against, and the games not very exciting when played alone. Add a point to the overall score if youve got some people to play with.

Its Bomberman, with very few changes.

They get the job done, but they arent too exciting.

The music is decent, and detonating bombs by yelling is a hoot.

If you have people to play with its a blast. Its not great alone though.

Playing with friends gives endless replay, and playing alone doesnt.