How many jobs are there out there where one gets paid to toss bombs around, blowing up everything in your path? The evil Altair has wrested control of the Omni Cube (which allows its holder to possess the tremendous power of the universe), and it's up to Bomberman to get it back.

Original N64europe Review

Bomberman 64 has already been released on almost every console, and now it's also out on the N64. It has 2 modes to play: an adventure mode and a battle mode. All levels are now fully 3D, the battle stages as well. In Adventure mode you begin with 4 worlds to choose, which exist of 4 stages, stage 1 and 3 are normal walk-around stages, which can be completed by solving puzzles and reaching the final goal. In stage 2 you have to defeat a mini-endboss, while in stage 4 the big endboss is waiting for you. After having completed every world and it's 4 stages, there'll be a new world to play and there's also a hidden bonus world. In Battle mode you're in an arena where you got to blow up your mates or the computer. There are arena's where you can have a battle, all also in a 3D environment. It's pretty easy to control Bomberman, you can let him walk with the 3D stick, with A button he "creates" a bomb and with the B button you can pick up a bomb and throw it away. The camera can be controlled by the yellow C-buttons.

Allright, that was enough introduction, what's the game real like to play? During the Adventure levels, you don't get into a fight very often, just because there aren't many enemies hanging around. If you do get into a fight, it's very easy to kill your enemy, just throw a few bombs against him and he's gone. That's a big minus-point. A plus point of this game is that it's very hard to complete, not because there's that much challenge (indeed), but because you have to solve difficult puzzles to reach the goal. The controlling of the camera is very sad, sometimes you don't even see Bomberman, don't ask me why walls don't go away (like in Super Mario 64) so you can see where you walk. Another bad thing is that during the levels the screen sometimes fades black, because it has to load! Come on, you don't see this at any other N64 game (well not during a level), so why should it be that Bomberman 64 does have to load? It's N64, not Playstation or Saturn!

My conclusion is, that if you want a 3D puzzle game, Bomberman 64 is the right game for you. But if you don't like non-action games which have to load (!), don't spend your money on this title. By the way, within a few months there'll be a second version of Bomberman 64 released, called Bomberman Hero: Queen Milian's Rescue. Keep visiting this page for more info.

- by Gerben Stavast