Whew. So that was a good...oh man over one month break. The plans for what I was doing during May kind of fell apart at the hinges, and real life kept me away from writing. BUT I've had plenty of time to play a large number of games, so I have a lot of material to work with here. Now I COULD provide a review of one of the many strange finds I've found over the past month, but I'm a bit rusty with this whole "writing" thing. So you know what? Lets just do something we can all agree on. So load up your shotguns, come over here to this barrel and lets shoot some freaking fish and talk about Bomberman Act Zero.
I'd usually start with the story here, but its basically nonexistent. You create a Bomberman or Bomberwoman, and you have to conquer 99 floors of other Bombermen in order to make it to Earths surface and escape. If it sounds like I'm giving a very brief and boring synopsis of the story, then your right, because that's all there is to the plot. There's no cut-scenes, no characters introduced, not much of anything really. Unless there's some big evil plot introduced at some point, in which case it showed up way too late and sometime after I slogged my way through over 50 floors of this rubbish, but more on that later.
As for the gameplay on its own...it's actually good. To quickly explain the gameplay of the typical Bomberman game, you're placed in an arena with other players and your goal is to use bombs to clear away rubble, pick up powerups to make yourself better, and kill your opponents. And in Act Zero, you do just that. Granted, there's a big problem with it, but we're getting there. The biggest change this time is the inclusion of First Person Battle, which doesn't give you a first person view, but rather allows to to freely move the camera, and also gives you a life bar, allowing you to be a bit more reckless. In terms of the gameplay, it's actually structurally sound and might actually be fun in short bursts. The same however can't be said for the games structure.
Here's how it goes down. I mentioned before that you have to conquer 99 floors to beat the game. In order to clear a floor, you have to be the last man standing, either by killing your opponents or surviving until the timer runs out. This is what you do for ALL 99 FLOORS. Powerups carry over from floor to floor, keeping you consistently powerful, but because of that winning each floor becomes increasingly easier and more boring as time goes on, especially when you get the line infinite bomb combo. And if you didn't get that then guess what. The game turns into an even more boring game of "Find the Exploit", because the AI knows exactly where to go and is able to immediately change their route to the nearest safe zone at the slightest sign of danger. Keep in mind that this is the same thing for 99 FLOORS. And god forbid you bite the dust halfway through, because if you die, you have to start all the way from Floor 1. That's right there's no continues in this game. There's also no saving either, so you'd better be planing a marathon for this one because there won't be any breaks.
In terms of the presentation, its passable. The game graphically fits what it's trying to go for, which is a very not-Bomberman dystopian future setting that only changes colors every twenty some odd floors. The soundtrack is completely forgettable however, with no track sticking out and very little variety. I know Bomberman isn't really known for earth-shattering graphics and earworm soundtracks, but this just bores me with how it both looks and sounds.
Of course, it's agreed on that the best aspect in just about every Bomberman game is it's multiplayer, and that remains true here. Well, kind of. There is no local multiplayer to speak of in Act Zero. All multiplayer action is taking place online here, meaning if you don't want to shell out the money for an Xbox Live Gold membership (plus a wireless adapter if on an older 360)? Then guess what, all you get is this boring as sin single player game with nothing else. I have heard and seen firsthand why the multiplayer is the best part, but I shouldn't have to pay more real life money to access the best part of a game.
There is not much to like in Bomberman Act Zero. The game itself is structurally sound, but the whole thing is just boring as sin, with very little variety that overstays its welcome far too quickly. Multiplayer is the only saving grace for this game, but you have to pay extra to access it, and its assuming you're able to find a match to join at all (Psst, Proton Jon stream nights.). Bomberman Act Zero is dirt cheap, but even still, its really only a game you'll play once by normal means. Maybe if you think it'll make for a good joke, but don't bother otherwise.
The Silent Protagonist wishes to remind you that it's still anyone's game.
All images are the properties of their original owners. After what the original owners did with this game, maybe what happened to them was for the best...
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