Review WIP:
If you can say one thing about consoles, it's that their games sure get milked until only a pale shade of their former glories remains. Poor Mario has been sent all over the world and even among the stars, had to learn how to play golf, got pummelled by turtle shells while driving his kart, had his girlfriend get kidnapped over and over again and even got sent through time!
Bomberman is no different, however. First released in 1983, it's had many many reincarnations, each a little more different than the next, but the idea of lobbing bombs around always remained. Bomberman has never really been away - several games have been released on each Nintendo console or handheld since 1985. I'll leave it up to you to decide whether this shows that Bomberman is still popular or whether Hudson Soft is trying to squeeze every penny out of their brand ...
So what about Atomic Bomberman? Released in 1997, it was a game that received little to no attention and entered stores at budget price. Normally, this is a sign of a cheap port so when I originally bought the game, I had my reservations. These quickly dissipated, however, since the game itself turned out to be remarkably good!
Let's first explain the basics: the goal is to eliminate your opponent by getting him caught in the blast line of one of the bombs. This blast line is very short at first, but by blowing up rocks, you can find power ups that increase the power of your bombs. Not only that, but they can make you run faster, make your bombs bounce off walls, create remotely detonated bombs, kick bombs, throw bombs, etc. etc. All these options add a great deal of strategy to the game but, most of all, it's about being lightning fast.
Featuring plenty of different themes (each with their own quirks), it doesn't get old as quickly as some of the other Bomberman sequels. For example, some levels contain a conveyor belt that not only carries your bomberman but also your bombs around the map. Or how about a map with manholes that randomly make you pop out another manhole on the map? As if the game isn't frantic enough, these specials add even more chaos and tactics to the whole.
While you can play the game against the AI (who is devilishly good), the real strenght comes from playing against your friends. If you got a gamepad or two (although I can't garantee modern gamepads will work) you can even have a match with three friends! Or how about you and a friend against two AI players? In the end, up to 10 bombermen can be on the same map at once although even 4 of them already makes the map a little overcrowded with bombs flying everywhere!
These days, it seems unbelievable for a console brand to get its own release on PC without it being garbage but Atomic Bomberman shows it wasn't always that way. It's still a very strong and fun game and while some games may boil down to bomb-spamming and the AI is not that fun to play against, it's still tremendous fun when played with a friend.
4/5
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