Wii Bomberman Blast

Forum member Tooms gives us his impressions of the latest Wii Bomberman game Bomberman Blast. Amongst other things. It's all yours Tooms!

First things first, I like Bomberman. When we get together with friends, Bomberman is always played. No matter what else. It seems to be universal. Even the Wife enjoys it.

Normally we play the Gamecube version. It always involves swearing and kicking and a lot of laughing. And picking on people. Bomberman is all about picking on people.

When I was a kid **beware – too much personal info alert** I used to go to a shop in my local town, that sold computer games. Do they still exist? Not GAME or Gamestation, but a one man band type thing. I used to frequent 2 others in my local larger town. In one of these is where I first played Street Fighter 2 arcade machine (and a man who could finish it as Zangief only using spinning pile drivers and getting a perfect on every level !!), and saw an Atari ST with graphics that were truly amazing.

Anyway my local shop had a Bomberman tournament. On a Super NES with the little multi adapter thingy that I so wanted to own but was never allowed! Anyway I liked Bomberman, I played and managed to kick my friends ass and I won the competition. I got a water bottle. YAY ME !!

Now it is 2008 and I have a Wii and Bomberman has finally been released onto the sleek white bundle of joy. So what is it like??

Well I turned it on and had a quick go the other day, but I played last night for a decent go, when I should have been re sealing the bath. Hmmm... not in the good books.

Moving on!!

The first thing you notice is it is very pretty. And there is no pointing. Nope. This is a wii game and the whole pointing aspect is taken away. You turn the remote sideways and play like a NES game. Very retro.

Then you notice how many options there are if you want to faff. You can register your name, and leave it at that. Or you can change your winning pose, your comments for wifi battle (4 of em, you write them yourself – YAAAAYYYY) and a whole bunch of other things.

Right then, sod that, name in, lets get a game. Then you notice how many different variations there are. Battle arena normal, everyday bomberman, and even that you can have normal sized or bigger. But then again, you can have 8 players at once. This is not the SNES version at all !!

And it is Bomberman. I like Bomberman. I loved Bomberman on the SNES, and this is almost exactly the same. It is still infuriatingly addictive and annoying at the same time. I really want to blow the others up. I don’t want to get blown up. And I love it.

So you can change how many battles you play, whether it is the first person to win so many games, or play for points. Change power ups, if they can be destroyed, whether there are viruses, everything.

And 8 players?? I am SO not used to 8 players. You can turn em off if you want. But where's the fun in that?

And even better, you can have 8 real people on one wii if you want, and if you have enough thingys. 4 Wiimotes and 4 Gamecube pads and you are there. That is a party I want to have.

There are some new power ups. Some of which you shake your remote to activate. I think the shield is my new favourite. If you ever played bomberman on the Gameboy, you will know you could get a power up that meant you could not get blown up. Made the game a bit easy:

“come towards me mister bad guy”, drop bomb, stand still, bomb blows up, I live, he doesn’t, – “murahahahahaha”!

There are different competitions. There is now one where if you get hit by a blast, a clock appears above your head, and you have 20 seconds to live !! What would you do in that time?? That’s right, try and find another player to pass it on to. Like a virus, touch another player, and the timer passes to them.

I had a lot of fun on that level playing. It makes it a bit interesting wondering if you should try blowing yourself up to pass it to another player. Hehehe

There is the king of the ring. Find a crown, carry if around, try not to get blown up. If you do, you lose the Crown and someone else can pick it up. Person wearing it at the end wins the round.

I can see a lot of people being picked on in that game !!

I think the biggest difference is the revenge. When you die, you can choose to have revenge. You get in a tiny flying saucer and haunt the edge of the screen. I expect you have all seen this. However new to me is, if you manage to kill someone, you swap and get back in the game and they get to try to wreak revenge. Love it.

There is a friend code *groan* - 12 numbers long. And you can just choose world wide or continental battles, either as a group or on your own. They all seem to be ranked when you play in the worldwide or continental. And you seem to be penalised if you keep disconnecting during a game. Quite heavily too it appears.

But yeah, friend rooms can be created, or join others. I had a quick look and no one seemed to be on in the worldwide room, it is not like Mariokart I guess where you can join in after just one game, but I will try leaving it connected at some point and see what pops up.

But like I said, loads of options.

Anyway, I love it. I cant wait to play it with humans rather than the computer. But I will. And I know I will keep coming back to it.

1000 points seems a bit steep, but with the options available, and the joy I know it will bring (as well as the annoyance), I reckon it is totally worth it.

2 Toomsy thumbs, well up !!

Need your fuse lit? Just don't strike a match too close to THE CELLAR DOOR. Tooms can probably explain why on the FORUM.