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| | Difficulty: 1 | | Learning Curve: 1 | Published by:  gamersreports | | Date: 2006-09-28 |
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Written by Josh Lowensohn
“I woke up in dark cold basement. Is this a dream or reality? Why? What for? Who brought me here?” –Bomberman: Act Zero
While this quote/marketing tagline for Bomberman: Act Zero attempts to purvey the dire status of this character, don’t be worried about figuring out the answer or attempting to understand more about the plot, because Hudson Soft (the developers) won’t end up ever telling you. Thus begins the perilous software journey that is Bomberman: Act Zero (B:AZ).
For decades, the Bomberman series has been a cult favorite among gamers and even non-gamers. Loved by many for it’s simple, yet deep gameplay and all-ages understanding that violence can be given a thinly-veiled cuteness that can disarm even the staunchest child protection advocate. Bomberman has seen action on nearly every console, but is best known for its Super NES and Sega Saturn renditions, which are considered by many to be the strongest versions.
Hot bombing action.
Fast forward to now. As of writing, the XBOX 360 is the most powerful and capable console on the market. The games that are coming out now are of the “second software generation,” yielding impressive graphics and deep gaming experiences that have pushed beyond what the last generation was capable of. Taking all this into account, it must be said up front that B:AZ is an absolute stinker of an XBOX 360 game, and frankly wouldn’t even cut the mustard on a portable these days.
The root of B:AZ’s weakness as a game is that it doesn’t offer anything to make you want to come back to play it. No matter how far you get, dying just once takes you back to the cold and boring main menu. You begin your journey in “the cage,” a place where you can design your character in two exciting ways, gender and armor coloring. Unlike say Oblivion, designing your character has no real impact on your game. The damage models are lame enough for it not to matter being the smaller female over the larger male, despite the fact that in a game where dodging bombs is your main priority, you’d think there would be some importance placed on player size.
Character models aside, choosing either of the two single player modes drops you into the mad, cruel world that is B:AZ. Levels all look quite similar, as you’re usually cornered with surrounding soft walls and must blow your way out to get some running room and start blasting your competition. Like in Bomberman of yore, hidden in the blown up walls are power ups, which are crucial in gaining the edge on the CPU opponents.
Ummm, why are you so intense man? Seriously, turn down the creepy.
Speaking of which you’re probably going to be spending a lot of your time playing against CPU opponents which are often quite stupid in the early levels (as they should be). In fact, you’ll probably be blowing yourself up more than them you…mostly because there is no local multiplayer. Hudson Soft had the gall to turn one of the top five party games into an online-only affair. Who thought this would be a good idea? Again, the same people who decided to make Bomberman look creepy.
That brings us to graphics. B:AZ is a nightmare. Bits of it are definitely next gen, like the textures on some of the blocks, but honestly that’s about it. Everything else is 100% last gen. It’s unfortunate really, that explosions, which have looked just incredible in games like Call of Duty 2, Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, and even Kameo, just scream mediocrity in B:AZ. Instead of having cool particles when walls explode, there are about six or seven identical pieces of brown dirt spheres that plop down in a geometrically perfect formation. Note to developers: this doesn’t cut it anymore.
To a degree, there is a great deal of attention thrown on your character upon getting dropped into a level. The camera swoops down to you hitting the floor and zooms right into your cold, metallic face to signal that you’re ready for the fight. This is unfortunately where B:AZ’s graphical inadequacies shine the most. You instantly notice the movement doesn’t look natural. There’s no eyes, ears, mouth, etc. In fact, what are we looking at? Characters have one giant hand. This is never explained and never really matters whatsoever, since bombs literally come out of nowhere. Note to developers #2: If you’re going to make us watch this “intro” every level, at least let us be able to skip it.
See, it's almost like the old bomberman, except you can't see what is what.
Speaking of repetition, B:AZ’s music and sound effects are just plain boring. The 360 can spit out 5.1 sound without batting an eyelash, but you’re probably going to want to put on music just to avoid hearing the in-studio band Hudson Soft hired to do the music. You have the money, get something that sounds deep and involving. Explosions all sound the same and there’s no sense of immersion sound-wise when things go off. Exploding wall-penetrating bombs don’t sound any different from regular old bombs, and the screams when competitors die are just cheesy. I give Hudson Soft respect for not trying to do voiceover work (thus requiring some sort of cut scene or plot), but my goodness at least attempt to pull us into the game with some musical variation.
The multiplayer aspect of B:AZ should be mentioned, as it’s honestly the only part of the game that brings fun to the table. Hopping into games on Live is easy, however it should be noted that finding people to play with is somehow harder than you’d think. Nearly a week after its release, it was a challenge for me to hop on and play a ranked game right away. Furthermore, for supporting 8 players over live, my biggest match was with two other people and that was at peak hours.
The good news is that setting up game lobbies and changing the settings is easy as pie. There are only a couple of modes, so you’d hope they get this right. Games can’t be started until everybody in the lobby is ready, which honestly is a better concept in theory than in practice in the world of online gaming. Winners get their points tallied from the match, counting power-ups, damage inflicted and time used to add up to a total score. This gets added to your ranking total which pops up on a leaderboard. This game seems like the perfect 360 title to create a great clan system, but as you can guess it’s nowhere to be found.
Besides these grunts and groans, the online experience is relatively smooth. I experienced no real noticeable lag or slowdown on these online matches, and the heads up display was very unobtrusive. However, when collecting powerups, they simply pile up on the left of the screen. Getting multiple units of the same power up just throws up a multiplier icon and calls it a day. Progress bars of some sort would have been cleaner and easier to understand, although I guess technically you forget about these things when you’re dodging an entire wall of exploding plasma.
Final Verdict:
Bomberman: Act Zero is a game caught in an identity crisis. It wants to be something completely different from itself, and at the same time has given up all the things that made it lovable in the first place. Yes the controls are simple and tight, but ultimately when the game lacks true depth, where does that leave you? Levels are boring, repetitive and uninventive. The point of view never seems right, and the complete lack of save points, a tutorial or actual plot really kills it as a $50 title. Let me put it bluntly: I wouldn’t pay $10 for this on XBOX Live Arcade.
Another thing that really gets my goat is the complete lack of local multiplayer. Yes this may not be an issue for many people, since the prospect of purchasing multiple $40-50 controllers seems outrageous, but in the spirit of multiplayer gaming, Bomberman is, and always has been focused on going up against other people (read: not computers with lousy A.I). While XBOX Live is bringing people from all over the place to our living room, the other 40% of XBOX 360 users who aren’t online are being given less of a game, which honestly isn't the way console gaming should be.
Note to developers #3: try.
-JL
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- Aug 29, 2006
- Aug 29, 2006 (US)
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