Bomberman: Act Zero bombs

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Posted Jul 30th 2006 12:00PM by Ken Weeks
Filed under: Reviews

I'm publishing Dirk Dorkelson's Bomberman: Act Zero rant in near entirety:

According to the Official Xbox mag review, which gives Bomberman: Act Zero a whopping 4 out of 10, the ultimate party game won't be playable at parties. For some bizarre, boneheaded reason, the game is only multiplayer if you play it online. A quick check of Konami's website seems to confirm this, with it listing the game as a single-player game, with 2-8 players online.

Sadly, this also probably means that my married friends who I game with online all the time won't be able to play the title with me over Xbox Live unless they take turns playing. Lame.

How the hell could they screw up something so basic? Isn't the true joy of Bomberman inviting a few friends over and blasting the hell out of each other while having a few beers?

Also, the game has 99 levels in the single-player mode. But you can't save your progress.

OXM calls it "impossible to love." Color me disappointed.

Tags: act zero, ActZero, bomberman, konami, party games, PartyGames, review

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Reader Comments

(Page 1)

1. ha... ha... ha...

*shakes head*

Posted at 12:34PM on Jul 30th 2006 by SydRocks

2. Actually, to be honest, I've noticed this trend with many games - lack of (or shoddy) local multiplayer. This also includes lack of 'guest' players in online-enabled games (CoD2, I'm looking at you)

I know on an Xbox console, the focus is on whole 'Live' experience, but that's supposed to be highlighting the social aspect of gaming -- to not even have a decent option for local and/or local + Live multiplayer almost reverses the effect.

I'd like to know if this short-sightedness is Microsoft's direct doing (i.e. telling a developer not to worry about it), or the developers themselves thinking it's not important.

It's still important, and always will be!

While there's only so much you can do with 4 players on one screen, many games in our past have done this with very little difficulty.

I think this is why games like Small Arms is going to be so well-received, the Xbox (whether intentionally or not) has really forgotten the local space, and it could be why they're so excited about the Wii - with the console being so inexpensive, they can hype it up like it's their own personal "good buy".

What do my friends and I play when they're over? Gladius for the original Xbox. It's not even Backwards Compatible. It's a fairly linear RPG/RTS (don't get me started on the need for (local) multiplayer RPGs - devs need to play Secret of Mana and learn some things), but it's involving while still allowing (hell, requiring) interaction between the people playing.

This is a great example of how one of the most fundamental aspects of gaming is being lost as we move into online play. Balancing both effectively is the key to a successful game (as much as I hate the game now, Halo 2 is, and will forever be, the greatest example of this)

Posted at 1:03PM on Jul 30th 2006 by Morgon

3. Hopefully Microsoft will send this one back to the lab. Hudson has developed a very bad habit of releasing a shitty Bomberman game on any given console before releasing a good one.

Posted at 2:35PM on Jul 30th 2006 by J.Goodwin

4. The multi-player bug stikes again. I'm still wondering why NCAA College football is only two player head to head... is it just me or does it seem like if you want to have friends come over and play a couple of rounds of, insert game title here, then you'll need a console for each player? Further more, will they be releasing a patch to go along with the game in it's early life cycle?

As for patches, it seems to be an easy out for developers. Instead of finishing a game they can just duct tape the holes after the fact.

Posted at 9:21AM on Jul 31st 2006 by T3chnic133

5. Uno is the same way you need a whole nother 360 just to play 2 people in the same house and what's said is that if my wife and I were able to play uno together she might like the 360 a little bit more.

Posted at 12:16PM on Jul 31st 2006 by Gifted76

6. Gifted76:

Yeah, but Uno is a card game. You're not supposed to see the cards other people are holding. How would that work with two people playing on the same TV? ("OK, you look away while I figure out what I'm going to play. I told you, no peeking!")

Bomberman, on the other hand, started out as a game that was multiplayer on a single console. That was its whole reason for being. This is the first console game in the franchise that you can't play offline with friends.

Posted at 6:56PM on Jul 31st 2006 by Dirk Dorkelson

7. #5. ditto: my last chance to impress my wife with the 360 and... " we can't play Uno together?!"

All I could do was shake my head. MORE LOCAL MULTIPLAYER FOLKS! Especially in XBLA - it should be a given.

Posted at 11:49AM on Aug 11th 2006 by intRvenous

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