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Bomberman Mini Review
Jon Wilcox
09/02/2007
Following an unsuccessful debut on Xbox 360, the bombing campaign begins again on Sony's portable format...
Bomberman's last outing (a debut on Xbox 360 in Bomberman: Act Zero) is perhaps most memorable for being universally panned by critics, and yet less than a few months later, the classic character returns in a more familiar form with another debut, this time on PSP. So having starred in around thirty titles since his debut in 1983, and with nearly as many publishers in that time, does Bomberman PSP raise the roof, or raze to the ground?
If you've never played a Bomberman title ever, then please sell your consoles and give your kid brother or sister your PC - you're a 'weekend gamer' quite frankly, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Seriously though, there's no real excuse not to have played Bomberman - the little explosive guy has been on every format for a quarter of a century, and is one of the true 'classic' videogame characters of all time. But, if you haven't had the opportunity to get your mitts on any version in your gaming lifetime, here's the simple premise:
Blow everybody else up.
It's that simple. Take control of a little bomb wielding 'bot, travel through a multitude of mazes, and lay bombs to destroy other Bombermen and the variety of enemies that are sprinkled throughout the game. And so it's been for...well, ever. So what does this latest version of Bomberman have to offer? Well for starters, let's just say that it's another example of how Hudson refuses to leave well alone. Having forged a pure game so many years ago, the developer just doesn't know when to put the brush down, instead adding new tweaks and nuances that aren't needed at all. Is there any reason to implement a superficial excuse of a narrative, especially when it's as thin as it is? For those of you looking for a deep and meaningful reason for the 'events' of the game, the story sees the 'bombed one' free a number of themed worlds (including Ice World, Jungle World, and Lava World) from an evil fog, cast down by a shadowy figure... It's like coming up for a back story to Tetris or Pac-Man - there's just no need.
But it's not even this atomically thin narrative that makes the Bomberman PSP experience convoluted and trite; each of the worlds are inhabited by a range of enemies that wander back and forth through the various maps - and they don't throw bombs! Instead, the gameplay largely rotates around the ultimately dull experience of blowing up each of the enemies, where the only real threat is being caught up in your own blast (a suicide bomber by-proxy) or running headlong into an enemy. Perhaps Hudson feels the need to create such a mode in order to justify the price tag and pad out the gameplay, which would otherwise remain the same as the very first title in the early 1980s.
Speaking of the 1980s, the Battle Mode, features over fifty maps based on the NES version of Bomberman, which thankfully means that the classic gameplay makes some sort of an appearance in the version. However, considering that Bomberman '93 is available on Wii's Virtual Console (and similar appearances are surely in the works for both PlayStation 3's online service, and Xbox Live Arcade), do we need to pay a premium just so we can experience age old escapades on the move? One of the few gems of originality in the game is the inclusion of Game Sharing functionality, allowing up to four gamers to experience multiplayer Bomberman over the PSP's Ad Hoc Wi-Fi. The function also featured in the little guy's debut on Nintendo DS in 2005, and is something that is seldom added to PSP games, especially some of the smaller titles. Despite these teasing features, it's a massive opportunity missed by Hudson - why not eight player game sharing? Why only Ad Hoc multiplayer and not Infrastructure?
It's been on a vast majority of platforms (including Nokia's failed N-Gage) over the years, so perhaps it's not surprising to finally play the little robot on PSP. Despite a few random pluses, such as the ability to Game Share with up to three other players on a single UMD, Hudson's over-enthusiasm (and near pathological obsession) with messing with the gameplay, creates a rather dull and watered-down 'campaign'. That said, at least it's not as bad as Bomberman: Act Zero, so perhaps the franchise is on its way up again...
