"At $20 you are being ripped off"

Even at the bargain price of $20, this game is a mess, at least as far as the story mode goes, which is the only mode I care about. Just about every aspect of this game is a disaster. I did not particularly like ''Bomberman Generation'', but this sequel is even worse. Read on.

GRAPHICS: 3/10 The graphics in this game are a disgrace. The first Bomberman game for N64, looks like 'Ninja Gaiden'' in comparison to this. The quality of the graphics fall somewhere between the atari 2600, and Colecovison; that is, not as good as Colecovision which was over 30 years ago.

MUSIC/SOUND: 5/10 The sound effects and use of Dolby pro logic 2 are very good, but that just makes the already awful music sound even worse. The voice acting isn't bad, it's just downright irritating.

CAMERA/CONTROL: 3/10 While the controls are responsive and easy to learn, the camera is from hell. Why is it that ''Maximo'' moves way faster than Bomberman, and the camera manages to keep up with him, but can not keep up with bomberman? For some inexplicable reason you can not use the right stick to move the camera, supposedly it is used for something else, but it really isn't. You are constantly making sharp turns and the camera will not move with you, all you can do is use the right and left shoulder buttons to rotate the camera, and it works extremely bad. Using the option to reverse right and left is even worse. Boss battles are pretty much waged unseen, you just place your bombs and take your chances.

GAME PLAY: 3/10 This is how it goes. First world, level one, a complicated maze ending with a midlevel type boss; levele 2, another maze; level three, a boss; level four, another maze ending with another mid level type boss; level five, another maze; level six, the boss again. Repeat this for worlds two and three, then for four and five, the same thing except only one level before each boss. To add to the frustration of the mazes is a totally useless map( well maybe not totally, but pretty close). There is even a sixth world that is pretty much just another boss and will give you a different ending, but to get to it, you must collect all the cards, which can be very difficult for several reasons. Some cards you can't get until you come back later when you have the right ''charabom'', a helper you can equip and feed fruit to to level up to level three. Another problem is that you only have 21 hours in the game before annihilation, and yet everything is ticking off time, like videos, and assistance that takes forever to listen to. Bosses have to be beat a certain way and in a certain time limit for two cards each time. Add to all this the fact that the game saves automatically, and never until a level is complete, and you have the perfect recipe for total frustration.

VALUE: 3/10 Since you may only play this a couple of hours before throwing it away, even at $20 it is a total waste of money. I would recommend renting it, but only for 99 cents or less.

FINAL COMMENTS: All I can say, is that ''if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is.'' A Game Cube exclusive new Bomberman game for under $20, what could be better? Almost anything but this. If you are only spending $20 for a brand new game, caveat emptor, let the buyer beware.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 03/28/04