Bomberman 64

"Best Single player mode in BM game, Solid Multi"

Bomberman, one of the greatest multiplayer party games. Sadly over the ages, the single player mode sucks hard.

This changes with Bomberman 64.

The bigest change, other than the 3D graphics, is the change from + form bombs, is to the circle blast radius bombs. This adds a new degree of caution to your blast plans, but at the same time, your enemies must also do the same. The single player mode is also more puzzle based now. In order to reach each levels goal, you going to have to do some serious thinking. Puzzles range from simple ''get to the switch'', all the way to ''Bombjump your way to a high hill''.

Did I say bomb jump? It's one of your new abilities, in adition to picking up, and 'pumping up' bombs. Making the best use of all these skills is a must for beating the game.

And that may take you some time. The single player mode fallows the story of the Bomberman as he tries to board a flying fortress to stop it from destroying planet Bomber. To get to the fortress, he must bomb his way through 4 other worlds, each with the usual themes you would expect in any platformer (one water world, one fire, and one ice, and one garden style). After beating all 4 ministages, 1 and 3 being puzzle platform levels, 2 and 4 being boss levels (mini and regular), you gain access to the techno fucky fortress. After beating the fortress, you haqve the option of collecting 100 Gold cards (5 from each of the 20 stages) to unlock a secret ending, fallowed by a secret world.

Another fun secret in the single player is the chance of finding carefully hidden items that, when collected, allow you to customize your bomber for multiplayer. They come in 4 varietys, head, body, feet and arms. With these, you can give your own touch to Bombermans appearance, and save it to a mem pack. The final product can be used in multiplayer mode.

Geting to the multiplayer, its fantastic. The levels are balanced and well-designed, and the options allow for a variety of match types. Matches are also timed, and in the last minute, depending on the stage, sudden death will add another twist to mayham. Some levels will have meteors fall from the sky, another will ahve the waters rise, causing the bombers to sink. Others have walls that close in on the players. Also, unlike the SNES bombermans, you don't have to shell out all the extra $$$ to get a multi tap and 2 extra controllers for multiplayer. Just invite some N64 owning friends over, tell them to bring controllers, and have fun!!!

Graphics: 6
Not so good. The Bomberman looks good in 3D, and the levels are great to look at. But there is still the momentary wall cliping problem of slowdown when several bombs explode. The camera controlls well.

Sound: 5
What kinds of sounds do you expect from the N64!!! No award winning soundtracks here. But who buys games like this for the music.

Story: 4
Planet Bomber is attacked by aliens that suck the lifeforce from planets. Bomberman tries to save it, with help from a resident from one of the planets the aliens blasted away a while back. Bomberman saves the world. This story sucks, buts saves itself with the special surprize at the end...

Controls: 7
He moves in all 8 directions. The camera looks at all 8 angles, and you only see yourself using A (drop bombs) and B (pick up bomb, and throw), and Z (detonate bombs when you find the remote bomb power up). Is it that hard... NO!!!

Depth: 7
Getting all those gold cards will take FOREVER, and trying to figure out how to beat some of the bosses can be troublesome too. Finding the Multiplayer costumes will be fun, but you may have some trouble finding out where they are...

Overall 7
A few flaws here and there, Bman shows us that no matter how smart we get, blowing up **** is always fun...

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/29/02, Updated 11/29/02