Before I start this review I think it’s important that I make it clear that, this particular series holds a place very near and dear to my heart.

I first played Bomberman in 1989 on my friend’s imported PC Engine (Japanese Turbografix 16). Every weekend me and four of my buds would get together after middle school and we would hammer out hours upon hours of Bomberman. I don’t think there is any multiplayer game in my youth that saw as much love as Bomberman did. Bomberman for us became less a game and more a way of life.

Over the years I’ve played other versions of Bomberman on other consoles, but no other version brought back the memories of playing with my four buddies. I suppose part of the reason is that as I’ve grown older it’s become tougher to get friends together to play. Imagine my joy then with the release of Bomberman Live?

This is the first Bomberman game in my books to recapture the glory of my youth. With Live play, I can easily connect with other Bomberman fanatics across the world, folks that share the same passion for the game that I do. The question then becomes, does Bomberman Live stack up when placed against other Bomberman versions from consoles that have come and gone?

Gameplay:

Make no mistake this is Bomberman. Not that god awful Act Zero crap released last year, THIS my friend’s is the Bomberman we all grew up on and love. In terms of Gameplay features it appears that Hudson Entertainment opened up the vault and pulled out the greatest features from the greatest Bomberman games of the past. You can play locally with up to 3 of your friends, or take on 7 other people over Live. One nice feature of the title is that you can bring have up to 3 guests on one Gold Profile, meaning you and 3 of your buds can play locally versus 4 others over Live.

The game features a staggering huge amount of powerups, game modes, and customizability features. No matter who you are odds are you’ll be able to find the “right” Bomberman settings for you. Personally I play with all items on and burnable, power downs off, skulls on and spreadable, revenge mode off, 3 – 5 wins required for victory and random arenas. I say this just to give you a small idea of all the various settings you can change.

Once in a match itself the game is pure Bomberman bliss. For those of you (all 2 of you) unfamiliar with Bomberman here is how it works: You start off in an arena filled with bricks that can be blown up. Underneath some of the bricks are all sorts of powerups, which give you many different bonuses. There is a huge amount of powerups, some of the standard one’s include features such as giving you extra bombs to lay, making your flame longer, speeding up your avatar, allowing you to punch or kick your bombs, and many many more. Suffice to say it, all of these powerups make for extremely interesting matches as you may take or pass up on certain powerups depending on your strategy. Skull (powerups) are a hoot as well as they can have disasterous effects on your game causing your Bomberman to speed up or slow down, or give you Bombherrhea and drop all your bombs with perilous abandon (that last is straight from the online manual!).

The actual arena’s are fairly varied and each one includes a different “gimmick”. Gimmick’s include quicksand on the floor, teleporters, trapdoors and various other features that mix up the game abit. Personally I still think “normal” mode is the best, it’s definitely the most classic.

Your gameplay experience is going to vary depending on the game settings and also depending on how many players you have in a match. For instance in one match I played with 4 players, Revenge off and it seemed that the game was a slower paced affair often lasting down to the last 10 seconds of the match. Later I played a match with 8 players, Revenge on. With Revenge On when a player dies he or she orbits the outside of the arena in a car and can toss bombs back in at players still in the match. Typically these matches lasted less than 40 seconds, often with two or three players dead in the first 10 seconds of the match. Both experiences were great but were very different. I count this as a good thing as you can alter your gameplay experience depending on what you feel like when playing.

Some other neat features include a Live Video Feed for the winner when a match ends, so you can laugh at your vanquished foes in real time (just make sure you’ve got your pants on eek!), and some new gameplay modes called Paint Bomb and Zombie. In Paint Bomb it’s basically the same game except your bombs colour the floor with your Bomberman’s colour. The winner of each match is the Bomberman with the most floor tiles painted their colour. Zombie mode is exactly the same as Paint Bomb but with unlimited respawns if you die.

Honestly I could go on forever about the gameplay features but the bottom line is that you will definitely be getting your points worth.

Graphics:

Graphically speaking … well the game is Bomberman. If you’ve played Bomberman you should know what to expect. Bomberman has never really been about l33t graphics, but instead has relied on superior gameplay. That said, Bomberman Live has a nice updated look on the 360 and everything looks crisp and clean. The Bomberman costumes look great on the screen as well. In my opinion the Live version of Bomberman takes the next appropriate step up in graphics, given the power of the console, but is instantly recognizable as being a Bomberman game. In the end this is all that matters.

Sound:

The sound in the game is great. Explosions are satisfyingly loud, when I first tried out the Power Bomb powerup the bass from the explosion rattled my windows. The music has a Japanese feel to it, which Bomberman purists will love. Everything about the sound in the title just feels right, exactly what Bomberman should deliver.

Longevity:

You will be playing this title for a very long time. If you’re a die hard fan of the series, even longer. Hell even my wife who is not a gamer at all, wants to get a Gold Account so she can dress up her damn Bomberman. In the local player portion of the game a “gem” drops at the 1:00 minute mark of each match. This gem unlocks various costumes you can dress up your Bomberman with, and the number of costume combinations is well over ten thousand. Once all the costumes are unlocked expect to be playing this title way down the road. The Developers have dangled the carrot of downloadable content in a few interviews which means it’s very likely we’ll see new arena’s, game modes and costumes down the road. All of that aside, there is a reason that Bomberman has kept on reappearing on consoles for the past 20 years … and it’s because the game is pure awesome.

Overall:

You really couldn’t ask for a better version of Bomberman. It stay’s true to all the things that made Bomberman a classic, and it represents fan service honed to a razor sharp edge. It’s playable online, and only costs 800 Microsoft Funbucks. Personally I’d pay triple what they are asking for such a feature packed title, at 800 points the game is a steal. This game belongs in everyone’s collection and is one of the best XBLA titles available to date. Do yourself a favour and pick up Bomberman Live. The offline demo doesn’t really convey the amount of fun to be had when blowing up 7 of your closest friends over Live.

Hudson made a mistake releasing Act Zero last year, but boy oh boy have they ever made up for it with the masterpiece of Bomberman Live. My hat off to the guys at Hudson Entertainment for giving us one of the best versions of Bomberman since the Sega Saturn.