Reviews
In order for me to enjoy an Live Arcade game, it has to do two things. First of all, it has to be able to satisfy me in short bursts. I need to be able to pick it up for ten minutes and get an enjoyable quick fix. Secondly it has to be deep enough to be able to draw me in for a lengthy fix. Hudson Soft's newest Bomberman iteration, Bomberman Live, a title designed for the ground up the the Xbox Live Arcade, does both of these things, and does them remarkably well.
The idea of Bomberman is to move your character around a square shaped environment divided into approx 12 by 12 coloums and rows. You have the ability to bomb obstacles in your path, which then clears the tiles on which they sit, often revealing powerups. These powerups will make your bombs stronger or more frequent, your bomberman's speed faster, and so on. It's all pretty simple and is pretty easy for even the biggest game novice to get to grips with.
The variety of the modes and maps are what make the game quite diverse. First of all you can play your typical death match style bout where up to eight players (either human or AI) are on the battlefield together and the aim is to be the last man standing. Solid stuff. Paint Bomb is a little different, in that the aim is to "paint" tiles with your bomb blasts, and stop your opponents from repainting all of the tiles you've painted. The player with the most tiles in their colour after a pre-determined time limit is the winner. If you die you're player will ride around the outskirts of the arena in a revenge cart and attempt to bomb one of the remaining players. If you succeed, you take that players place in the game. Zombie is similar accept everyone has unlimited lives and dying simply means you'll loose all the tiles painted in your colour. Each of the eight or so arenas in which you can do battle contain their own geographic obstacle, if you like, and each of these affect gameplay in different ways.
It takes a while to get to know what all the vast amount of powerups do, but once you get to grips with them and learn how to use them the game becomes surprisinly tactical and worthwhile. There's a lot of skill involved in such a simple game, and watching two veteran players on Xbox Live duking it out in a death match is quite impressive. Bomberman comes with unlockable costumes too, so you can do your fella up in a number of different combinations of outfits. It gets shallow quick, however, as it doesn't affect gameplay in any way.
Although the AI puts up a fair challenge, playing against your mates locally or playing online is where it'll be at after a while, as that's where the real fun is. The great thing is, you can take your local friends online with you and you can play together, a benefit of a game that is all played on the one screen. Despite the lag that can make things pretty difficult if you're playing against overseas players, the online mutliplayer really is great fun. Playing with mates over a few beers is just the ticket.
Offerering eight different playable arenas, a host of quality game modes, and great offline and online multiplayer, Bomberman Live is one of the better Xbox Live Arcade titles available at the moment, although I wouldn't put it up there with the very best. At 800 MS points, it's great for a quick blast, but also offers a deeper experience for those with more time to kill, thanks to the large number of maps, modes and powerups. Plus there's new content now on the marketplace, so get downloading!
XboxZone Score: 8.3/10
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