Bomberman DS
Too fired up over Advance Wars to go to bed (yeah…it’s past 10AM), so here’s a quick rundown on Bomberman DS.
Played Bomberman? You’ve played Bomberman DS. The single player game is exactly (well…almost) the same game we’ve been playing for 20 years. The only thing that’s really changed is the ability to stockpile your powerups, and there are so many versions of Bomberman, I’m not even sure if this is a new feature. When you collect an item, instead of going into effect immediately, it is added to your stock. Using the touch screen, you can scroll through and activate these powerups by touching them (thankfully, the buttons are nice and thumb-sized). This eliminates some of the tedium associated with Bomberman titles when your character dies and loses his powerups. As long as you have some stocked, it’s as easy as tapping the screen a couple times to get Bomberman back to blowing shit up. Boss battles take up both screens, and their designs are often fairly clever. Unfortunately, that’s as far as the upgrades go. It’s still just Bomberman, and there is only so much room for graphical improvement. Animation is smooth and the characters are bright and clear…and that’s about all you can say. This could have been done on GBA, which is ridiculous, considering something of Bomberman 64 proportion (or greater) could be done on DS.
Of course, I knew that when I bought the title. I didn’t get it for the single player (I’m burned out after about 60 levels…), I got it to play wirelessly with friends, because multiplayer Bomberman is a ton of fun and it is obviously where the emphasis went during development. You only need one cart and you can play with up to 7 friends wirelessly in one of…I think a billion modes. Everything is customizable, from handicaps to available items, and games range from classic Bomberman deathmatches to tricky trapdoor and conveyor belt matches. Obviously, the more people the more fun. Sure, you can add computer-controlled bots, but playing Bomberman against a logically infallible opponent is not fun. The computer knows exactly how far your bomb blasts go, and how they’re going to explode. He will always find the best possible route to avoid your explosions, and so you have to really corner bots, which normally ends up in your death. The fun is in playing with human friends, as they make mistakes, trash-talk, and develop grudges. Everybody team up on the guy in first place? Fuck everybody else, go after the guy that blew you up last, even if it means killing yourself? Anything goes with human opponents, and ANYBODY can jump in and mix things up with Bomberman experts. Alliances are made, broken, and avenged during the course of a single 5 minute battle, and it couldn’t be more fun.
The best multiplayer experience yet on the DS, but wait a month, and we’re going to start getting online titles.
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