Title: Bomberman: Act Zero
Genre: Action
Platform: Xbox 360
Developer: Hudson Soft
Publisher: Konami
Release Date: October, the 20th 2006
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Related articles: Bomberman Act: Zero, exclusive Hudson Soft interview
Bomberman is certainly one of the most popular franchises in the videogames world and this can be proved by the fact that more than 60 different games have been developed for every known (and maybe unknown) platform!
Thus, Bomberman is a burning issue of a game as millions of fans in the world are always anxious to see the last incarnation of their favourite game: that little, bizarre character which keeps bombs also under his pillow...probably.
When, some time ago, Hudson Soft announced the development of Bomberman Act: Zero exclusively for Xbox 360, fans reactions were very positive. However, if you were told that our "easygoing" Super Mario will become, in its next game, a super high-tech character, rude and resolute, what will your reaction be?
Nothing (hopefully) will change Nintendo plumber, but something similar has just happened to Bomberman.
Change of look
Bomberman Act: Zero, developed exclusively for Xbox 360 by Hudson Soft, marks a drastic change in Bomberman series. Out favourite "bomber-thrower" has, actually, completely changed its look for the debut on Xbox 360, being now "dressed" with a sci-fi cyborg armour and dropping the colour-rich and light-hearted atmospheres we were used to.
This new look is, probably, due to the game title: "Act: Zero". It seems that Hudson has decided to take the chance to change the appearance of our "hero" starting from the beginning, precisely from "Zero".
As you can read in our exclusive interviewwith the developers, Hudson was aware of the implicit risks in doing experiments (probably failed seeing Japan and USA market) on Bomberman "look and feel", but the final decision was to follow this revolutionary path without any regret.
Mission impossible
Who is not an Xbox LIVE Gold member will have the possibility to test his-self only in one very long and unusual single-player mode. What's the "unusual" about? Well, it reflects the fact that there will be no possibility to save the game, or the level or the statistics until the very end of the 99th and conclusive bomb-battle. This means that if we die, let's say, during the 98th schema, we will have to begin, again, all from the first level!
Bomberman Act: Zero can count on two different "game-play" modes: Standard and FPB (First Person Bomber). If the Standard one stands for the "Classic" one with the "original" point of view, the FPB is a new entry which can take the reader to a misunderstanding. Even if we think it might have been cool to play Bomberman in first person, the FPB is only a zoomed, but always 3rd person, point of view: second and last difference with the Standard one consists in the presence of a life bar with our energy level: this implicitly means that in FPB we won't die at the first explosion!
Moreover, in Act: Zero there will be, as usual, the possibility to use power-ups, special objects that can give, for example, our bomberman a 10 second immortality. Fortunately, from this point of view, there are tons of new stuff like time-bombs, penetrating-bombs and special shields.
Xbox LIVE passion!
Being developed specifically for Xbox LIVE, Bomberman Act: Zero finds in the on-line feature its "way to live". Online multiplayer in Bomberman assumes the name of "World Battle" and it gives us the possibility to challenge, with the same modes of single-player, up to 7 players at the same time.
But, what about offline multiplayer? What about the feature that mainly contributes to Bomberman successes? What about the possibility to challenge friends on our own console? Well, Bomberman Act: Zero will not support offline multiplayer either in split-screen or in system link.
Hence, Bomberman Act: Zero is completely "devoted" to an online multiplayer experience and this alone cannot be too much a short coming for this game: we are only slightly puzzled by the fact that the game, already released in the USA and Japan market, has not been able to "win their hearts" and, thus, there can be some difficulties in finding on-line gamers.
Therefore, our hope is that the European market will be able to improve the game fate, accepting Hudson changings on Bomberman look. In fact, it is worth saying that even if those changings can be negatively interpreted by fans, they could make the casual gamer happier and more interested on the game.
Final Comment
Bomberman Act: Zero release in Europe is expected for October the 20th. It is pointless to say that during all his trip from Japan, to USA, to Europe Bomberman will carry with him all "good and evil" innovations which are the bet taken by Hudson.
Will Hudson win its bet at least in the European market?
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Original article by Sergio Giannone, XboxWay Staff