Game:

Bomberman: Act Zero (2006)

Duration: 9:10

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2

So, if yesterday's peek and analysis wasn't too much for you already, here's the apparently signature single-player mode for the game, given that it's the first of the offline modes listed on the title screen's main menu. (The fact that the online play is the only option above that says other things about the priorities of the game's design, but I'll leave that to speak for itself.)

Now we're going to dive in and see what else the bomber boys at Hudson have been up to with their new spin on an old classic... "FPB" mode... uh...?

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Actually, the mode name seems itself a misnomer, because "FPB" apparently stands for "First-Person Bomber" (at least from what I can gather)... but the perspective granted is actually a third-person view... oops?

Anyway, the game's basics are the same, but the drastic departures are twofold: perspective and life capacity. Your camera is at a fixed distance from the player and must be manually positioned to give you a better view of what you're doing. Your bomber also has a life meter on a scale of 0 to 100 rather than only one hit before you lose... plus whatever number of heart pickups you can scrounge up along the way.

Another thing... which I would have thought that I'd have noticed if it was standard to the Bomberman series before now, but apparently another feature of Act:Zero involves your present Fire level determining not only how far the explosions travel, but also how long they persist. This is significant in this mode in particular, because the double-edged sword to a life bar is that you also have to be wary of how long you actually spend in an explosion, since it's not going to give you much grace time and thus you can suffer multiple hits of damage by being caught too long within the same detonation.

Now, if you want my appraisal... it's... different. And I'm not one to stamp out something new just because it's different, since I think trying old ideas in new patterns and arrangements is a vital process to actually coming up with entirely new and even more interesting things. That said, this particular attempt feels... a little misguided to say the least. For one thing, people routinely make mention of how much they HATE having to babysit a needy camera. (The only thing worse-regarded seems to be one you can't make any adjustments to all, particularly if it gets the notion in its head that it wants to look somewhere you don't want it to...)

Anyway, cameras are tough... but part of what makes Bomberman work so swimmingly as it does is the fact that it's you on a grid-based field trying to outmaneuver your opponents. By moving the camera, you get something... incredibly different from the strengths of the original formula and arrive somewhere much more difficult to manage and... well, (subjectively) far worse. If you can manage to bomb the heck out of mazes and robots (and artificially-cultivated humans) while running around AND needing to nudge the camera where you want to go at every one of your incredibly frequent turns... well, more power to ya, I guess... but that's suddenly asking a lot for an otherwise simplistic and easy-to-handle game.

Also, even if the game takes the same length of time by virtue of a time limit imposed... the fumbling around in the maze and grappling with your camera, it just... FEELS like it takes longer. Particularly since it gets directly in the way of your efforts of swiftly and efficiently fencing your opponents in with unfriendly fire.

I also want to complain about how hard it apparently was to get started on powerups... mostly because you can't actually focus on the whole field at the same time and thus some drops are pretty much guaranteed to evade your high-maintenance one-directionally watchful eye. I think there's a sound that plays when a powerup is uncovered, but that's a little hard to discern in the heat of bombs and battles, all while other players are doing likewise.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that it'll naturally be lighter on the heavy artillery and superpowered bombers running amok... If it didn't feel like it was taking me long enough to defeat enemies in Standard and I already have the notion that Standard "feels longer" in action, it's not about to get any better based on how the game is set up.,,

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Huh, come to think of it... can you really imagine such a thing? An actual first-person look at a Bomberman game? ...that would be absolutely brutal, and I'm having a hard time even visualizing how one would be able to play it effectively. They'd definitely need to allow independent camera and movement operations just like we see here, but the emphasis on your facing would make for some really weird play. You'd also need to have good stereo sound sense in order to make a clear appraisal of the source of your enemy's attacks and movements.

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