Detonate bombs in your best friend's face.
Who could ask for anything more?


Publisher: Sega
Developer: Hudson Soft
Genre: Strategy

There's always been at least one constant in the video game industry: Bomberman always makes for good gaming. And Saturn owners have a heck of a version -- Saturn Bomberman takes the best from past versions and throws in a few features of it's own.

For those living in a bomb shelter, Bomberman is one of the most addicting multiplayer games since Atari's Warlords.The idea is to strategically plant bombs and time them to explode in your opponents face. Each arena is formed out of destructible and indestructible walls, and it's up to you to place bombs and get the heck out of the way. Powerups are revealed when destroying breakable walls, and these can help or hurt you. Some allow you to drop multiple bombs, increase the distance of your bombs explosions, kick and throw bombs, and run faster. There's also a dinosaur you can ride, and each color dino has his own specialty. Some can jump, some cause opponents to get dizzy, and others can find hidden powerups. With the help of a couple multi-taps, up to 8 players can duke it out on the standard screen If you're willing to take a trip to the optometrist, battle 10 players on the high-res, wide-screen mode. Not recommended unless you have a huge monitor, or better yet, a 16:9 ratio television screen.

And Sega has tweaked the game to include NetLink support. With two players on each system, you can have up to four players in the fray. The only problem is that the game breaks up the systems into teams. System one is team one, and system two is team two. No individual melee over NetLink.

If deathmatches aren't your forte, one and two players can play through the main game. The purpose is to blow-up specific pillars while avoiding different enemies. It's a nice break from the manic multi-player games, but it certainly isn't the main draw.

Bomberman, in one form or another, is constantly being played throughout the Imagine offices. If Saturn Bomberman had faster load times and an quickstart mode, this would be the version that got the most play. As it stands, though, be prepared to wade through multiple menus and options just to start a game.

Single player games are nothing to write home about, but for multi-player matches, nothing beats Bomberman. And NetLinking adds yet another new variable to the Bomberman scene. If you possess more than one Saturn controller, it's your duty to pick up a copy of this game.