We love Bomberman and that’s a fact. Sure, the little guy and his cast of pals might not have managed to deliver a worthwhile single-player game in absolutely yonks, but the multiplayer credentials of the series have always been beyond doubt. If we were to sit down and draw up a list of multiplayer classics we’d want to play on Live, Bomberman would be nestling right near the top of the list. In fact, when we have people over, we’re prone to whipping our Saturn out and booting up Saturn Bomberman for a spot of ten-player pyrotechnic mayhem. As we said, we love Bomberman.

However, we can’t help but feel that Hudson is pushing our love for its iconic character and his explosive escapades to breaking point on this occasion.

The first sticking point is the new visual style. We’re all for change in the name of evolution, but there are certain things that you just don’t mess with. With our minds still telling us that Bomberman is the diminutive little chap with the oversized head who runs around blowing up similarly cute and cuddly cartoon characters in confectionery/space station/footballpitch themed arenas, the drab and murky dungeon that the android bombermen do battle in is something of a culture shock.

Secondly, there’s the new First Person Bomber (FPB) mode. Rather than keeping the traditional top-down camera angle used in pretty much every Bomberman game to date, Hudson has opted to use an above-and-behind angle, favoured by the majority of thirdperson action titles these days (slightly confusing, considering the mode’s title) with predictably dire results.

While the camera angle has changed, the actual arena hasn’t. The ability to adjust the height as well as control the direction of the camera means it’s not as bad as it could be, but with later levels involving explosions that can span half the play area, judging your movements with only a portion of the play area visible soon becomes incredibly tricky, if not impossible.

As it stands, the only thing separating this from being a total shambles is the Standard Bomberman mode. Make no mistake, it’s lazy and there are still flaws. Plus, because Act: Zero uses the same physics model and weapons as the FPB mode, fans will notice the weighting of the controls feels slightly less precise than its sprite-based prequels and that explosions tend to linger a little longer than previously. Likewise, the distant camera angle doesn’t manage to make things any less ugly to look at either. Despite Hudson’s best efforts though, even the tomfoolery that has marred the rest of the game is unable to suppress the traditional Bomberman goodness found in the Standard mode. Sure, it might look wrong and the controls might feel a bit off, but with the traditional viewpoint restored, you soon find yourself working out how to trap opponents as well as where the next explosion is likely to go off.

What can – and does – suppress it, is its online-centric nature. While Bomberman remains playable offline, Hudson makes no secret of the fact that it wants you to play it online. Boot up without being connected to Live and the screen politely informs you that it can only save data to a central server (rather than the onboard Hard Drive or a memory card) and asks if you’d like to continue without saving.

Select yes, and you’ll find your offline content restricted to the single-player modes. Rather than persisting with story-based antics favoured by previous games (a shame, as a suitably dark storyline – no matter how token – could have helped sell the new style), it takes the form of a beat-’em-up style roundbased system where you essentially have to work your way through round upon round of rival bombermen.

As such, this means that there’s no offline multiplayer Bomberman action to be had. While we’re the first to admit that we want Act: Zero for its Live component, even the most online focused deathmatch games normally retain some form of offline multiplayer content, no matter how token.

That Hudson could see fit to omit such a crucial element is as perplexing to us as it will be frustrating to gamers who are yet to embrace Live. Considering the limited nature of the offline content in conjunction with the fact that Bomberman has always been a multiplayer experience, there’s absolutely no need to shell out your hard-earned cash if you’re not a user of Microsoft’s excellent online service.

Mark Podd