Bomberman 2 review

Puzzle games don’t come much faster or more fiendishly addictive than Bomberman. The little fella might have been around so long he should be ready to join the pension queue, right behind Mega Man, but if Hudson keeps making games as good as Bomberman 2, we’re not going to argue it’s time for him to retire.

Everyone knows the basic Bomberman concept. You move around a maze of blocks and enemies, dropping bombs to clear both out of your way, making sure you don’t get caught up in the crossfire or get trapped by one of your own bombs (because blowing yourself up in a cloud of dynamite is so not cool).

Bomberman 2 is similar, but it’s more sophisticated. Its mazes are more like levels – ones with keycards, unlockable gates, finishing lines and level hazards such as laser beams. There’s also more to the game than just killing everything in sight. Every level has its own criteria, so you’re destroying blocks to find a key, reaching the end before a timer ticks down or blowing up energy cores.

On top of all this, there are also Bomberman ‘parts’ to collect throughout the game and these can be equipped, RPG-style, to our hero before each new level: new legs that give him the ability to kick bombs for instance, or more wide-blasting bombs.

Bomberman might be great, but one criticism of his more recent games was that they didn’t do anything new. Bomberman 2 though combines a refreshed single-player experience and a good old multiplayer one for up to eight players, blasting it high above the majority of its puzzle competition on the DS.

Feb 20, 2009