G4TV

With his TV-shaped head and circle hands, Bomberman has been a carryover from the simpler, cuter video game days that hasn't lost his appeal. Quite literally every console gets its turn at the peppy little pyromaniac, resulting in multiplayer glee for all. For its next-gen debut, Konami and Hudson apparently felt the plucky chap needed to grow up quick -- like an alcoholic father tossing his daughter into the car with a miniskirt, driving her to a busy corner and telling her to make that money.

Bleak Future

Gone are the adorable character designs from Bombermen past. Instead, Act: Zero takes place in a post-apocalyptic warzone. The combatants are bred in a cage for one thing: deadly combat, where only one will survive. While the designs are pretty edgy, who thought this stuff up? You might as well remake the Care Bears and have them maul neighborhood kids. The female Bomberpeople are even more disturbing -- unless you're into that sort of thing.

The maps you battle on are equally grim, looking like factories meet sewers meet Hell. Each Bomberman is led out on a zip line and plopped onto the field in macabre pageantry. Unfortunately, this process -- along with loading -- takes a good 20 seconds out of your own life. Why it takes longer to load a square battlefield of blocks than, say, the high-polygon DOA girls and their uber-interactive stages is beyond comprehension.

FPB FTW!

Act: Zero features two single-player modes of play. Like past titles, the object is to bomb the ever-loving crap out of AI adversaries. Destroying blocks can cause power-ups to appear -- which increase the number of bombs you can drop, boost your speed, or attach options like detonation triggers to your weapons. Aside from a few new pick-ups, the core of single-player hasn't evolved much from the NES days.

Single battle mode is what you're used to, while FPB has a few tweaks. Your character has a life bar, so getting singed does not always mean death. The perspective is third-person rather than overhead, in an attempt to increase the drama of the battle. Really, all it does is annoy you when you can't see the whole field. Some things both modes have in common: one life with no continues, not enough power-ups dropped, no options (like the ability to turn off the timer that rapidly shrinks the map after a few minutes) and mid-boss battles with impossible odds. Good luck getting through all 99 levels in a row, chief!

Share The Misery

Bomberman fans are reading this with bated breath, waiting for the chance to hear about what is always the high-point of every Bomberman game: multiplayer. Defying any and all explanation, Bomberman Act: Zero may have the worst multiplayer options in the franchise's history. It does not allow local multiplayer on one console. Read that one more time, and let it sink in. That means no procuring multiple controllers, inviting over some bomberfriends, and incinerating hours with friendly firefights.

The game's multiplayer rests solely on the shoulders of cold, anonymous Xbox Live play. It works as it should, with little lag and a few customization options. It's far from enough to compensate for the title's shortcomings, however, and you'll be hard-pressed to find a lot of other gamers online to play with. Most people smart enough to gather $400 to buy an Xbox 360 are smart enough to not buy this game -- at least until it falls into clearance bins, which it should do faster than that Milli Vanilli album where Rob and Fab actually sung the songs themselves.

This Bomb Blows

Bomberman would've been much better off as an Xbox Live Arcade download of the classic version. In fact, if given the choice between any previous Bomberman and Act: Zero, we'd choose the former. This one is too vacant, tries too hard to be cool, and fails to be compelling in either single- or multiplayer. Act: Zero accomplishes what even Al Qaeda was unable to do: turn "Bomberman" into a dirty word.

Article by: Justin Leeper
Video produced by: Ross Beeley