Bomberman Tournament

One of the most addictive games ever explodes onto the Game Boy Advance! It's fair to say that when we at 64 MAGAZINE heard of a Bomberman game being developed for the Game Boy Advance – well, we got more than a little excited. The little guy with the propensity for blowing things up has been around for quite a while and – with the odd exception – has starred in a number of fantastically addictive games!

Bomberman Tournament, fans of the game will be pleased to hear – has obviously been developed by someone who knows what people want from the game – and it's fantastic! Even better is the fact that not only does this title have the madcap multiplayer action that we've come to expect from Bomberman, but it also manages to produce the first decent RPG adventure game starring the little guy too! How, you ask? Well, you'd better read on... Bomberman Tournament is worth the price of the console, all on its own. There's the multiplayer battle mode (which we'll come to in a moment) and there's the single-player story mode. Story mode will look vaguely familiar to Game Boy Color owners. It's basically a cross between Zelda and the Pokémon games!

Explosive!

The story starts with Bomberman crash-landing his... er, Bombership, in a little village in a very Zelda-esque forest. The gameplay involves wandering the landscape, helping certain people out by finding stuff they've lost, battling others, and trading with everyone else. Battles come in one of two different forms – either with a familiar 'blowing stuff up' deathmatch affair, or with some very Pokémon-style turn-based combat using small creatures you find on your travels.

Battle Mode is a fantastic homage to past Bomberman games, with up to four players battling it out in an arena. You can choose from a range of levels, each with their own unique hazards (conveyors, pitfalls and suchlike) and a variety of power-ups ensures that the gameplay never gets boring. Like Mario Advance or F-Zero, this is another title that allows you to play four-player link-up battle with just the one cart – God bless you Activision! If you never buy another title for your Game Boy Advance, then at least get this one! “It's worth the cost of the console, all on its own!”

Pros

• Amazingly addictive multiplayer modes
• Four players from just the one cartridge
• Decent one-player mode too

Cons

• What's not to like?

BOTTOM LINE

CONTROLS

• L: Not used
• R: Not used
• Select: Menu
• Start: Pause
• D: Move Bomber
• B: Kick / Throw Bomb
• A: Place Bomb

ALTERNATIVES

• Legend of the River King 2: Ubi Soft (Reviewed: Issue 51, 70%)
• Mario Advance: Nintendo (Reviewed: Issue 52, 92%)

RATING

• Graphics: 4 / 5
• Audio: 4 / 5
• Gameplay: 5 / 5
• Challenge: 4 / 5