Bomberman: Act Zero

Bomberman: Act Zero is a 2006 action video game developed by Hudson Soft and published by Konami for the mh:awesomegames:Xbox 360. Act Zero features more realistic graphics and a dark, dystopian future setting.

Story
Bomberman: Act Zero is a remake of the original Bomberman game for the mh:awesomegames:Nintendo Entertainment System. The main character is a Bomberman (or woman), who is created for the sole purpose of fighting. They are awakened and thrown into a battle where only the strongest will survive.

Gameplay
The game has 99 levels, and the player must defeat their rival in every level using bombs to progress to the next one. The camera plays a unique role in the game in that it has two options. It can be used either from the 2D perspective of previous Bomberman titles or a 3rd person mode where the camera follows behind the player. Act Zero also has an online multiplayer mode that can support up to 8 players worldwide. However, there is no local mode.

Why It Blew Up

 * 1) The graphics are terrible for 2006 standards, and even for an Xbox 360 game. The game looks like an early Original Xbox game, but the game was actually released for the Xbox 360. And because of terrible graphics, the game basically looks like someone would actually want to do bad graphics in a Bomberman game.
 * 2) Let's get the elephant out of the room: the redesigns. Since this was an era where games had to be "gritty" and "edgier", Konami had the not-so-bright idea to redesign Bomberman, and in the process, disrespected the entire franchise along with it. This redesign can barely even qualify as "Bomberman", as he doesn't have his core design traits, and it's no wonder this redesign was never used in another game.
 * 3) * Plus, his redesign fits more as a Tokusatsu hero than Bomberman and he barely even looks like him.
 * 4) While the music doesn't sound bad, it is not very memorable and is easy to forget, like mh:awesomegames:Mario Party 9's music. Even if you would hear the level victory theme many times after completeting a level, the chances to remember the music are 20%, especially since the players can have other many things stuck in their heads and would not get the music from this game to their head to remember it.
 * 5) It does not have a save feature. While the game saves data relating to other stuff in the game, you must be however connected online in order to save. You must complete all 99 levels in one try. This means, if you die anywhere in any of the levels, you have to start the game all over again, and from the entire beginning. There are also no continues at all. To add insult to injury, the ending is just a short cutscene that's not worth the hassle of completing the game legitimately. The game can also get hard for newer players, meaning newer players would have a serious trouble to complete the next levels.
 * 6) The gameplay is tedious and repetitive. Each stage uses the exact same graphics and textures, and the game becomes boring very fast if you complete like 5 levels and notice that the next levels are the same. No matter which stage you will play, the game will not be exciting and will be boring instead, just to make you feel bored while playing the game.
 * 7) For some reason, you cannot kick bombs at all, meaning once you place a bomb, you have to walk away from it and watch out for the explosion, as once it touches Bomberman, he's dead. In other Bomberman games, there is a power-up where you can actually kick bombs after collecting it, meaning you can escape from the explosion of the bombs quickly. However, Act Zero absolutely does not belong in that category. This is like if the creators actually forgot about that ability, or the character basically have weak legs to kick bombs to other players, even if a bomb is not placed next to another one.
 * 8) The loading times are long, and they are on par with Sonic '06, Mega Man X7 or Crazy Frog Racer 2's loading screens. No matter which loading screen will be shown into your eyes, they will always have the same length, basically to bore you and waste more of your time. Because of this, the loading screens of Bomberman: Act Zero belong to a category named "video games with long loading screens".
 * 9) Speaking of the length, this game is not long. It can be beaten in 2 hours without dying, mainly if you are a talented player who rarely dies in a video game. The length is also barely like Ardennes Offensive's length. And even for an Xbox 360, the game is pretty short to complete, despite having 99 levels. Even SpongeBob HeroPants has a bit longer length than this game.
 * 10) Pathetic customization. All what you can do in the customization is basically change the gender and armor color for your character, in any gender or color you wish. You can't even change your character's appearance at all, like having a bit different armor. Instead, you can only change the gender and armor color of your character, and nothing else.
 * 11) * Not to mention, the female models have jiggle physics, for no reason, which is really strange, like if something was bad in the body of the female models.
 * 12) Poor story. What it shows you is basically a scene where Bomberman gets created, and then runs away from the explosions, and then suddenly stops and looks at the explosion. After that, the camera zooms in the way where we can see a bit of his head and body, and then the explosion actually reaches Bomberman, and then it shows the game's logo. And once the game's logo is shown, you are booted to the title screen. Even if the story tries to be good itself, it basically fails, meaning it won't be good at all, and is actually poor instead.
 * 13) Sluggish controls. You can sometimes do stupid things while trying to get away from a bomb to not get killed, like going to the wrong direction, or make Bomberman not go anywhere, like if you would actually try to make him look into a block that is not destroyable, and because of this, the explosion would kill Bomberman easily, especially if you would place a bomb and not even escape from it.
 * 14) None of the characters appear from the original series in this game. The only character that appears in the game is just Bomberman, and that's it. The enemies are just some male and female robots that you have to do an obvious thing to them, which is defeat them. This is like the other characters from the original Bomberman series actually took a vacation or they escaped from this game to not look terrible if they would be redesigned, so only Bomberman appears in the game, along with some different robots that look like they don't belong in a Bomberman game at all.
 * 15) The camera system during "First-Person Battles" is awful. Besides, the "First-Person Battle" isn't even first person. It's actually a behind-the-player Third-Person perspective. Not to mention, because of that camera, avoiding bombs can be difficult, especially if you would not even know that the explosion is coming to Bomberman to kill him.
 * 16) There is no local multiplayer mode in Bomberman: Act Zero. The only multiplayer in this game is the online multiplayer, and that's it, meaning you have to be connected to the Internet. If you are not connected to the Internet, you cannot play multiplayer at all. Not to mention, the regular multiplayer, which is basically something that you can play with other people in your house, meaning Act Zero only has online multiplayer and you must have an Internet connection, otherwise, playing multiplayer is impossible.
 * 17) Poor collision detection that looks like it was taken from the NES games based on The Simpsons and thrown into an Xbox 360 Bomberman game. Because of this, the bomb can possibly reach Bomberman and your opponents when it exploded, even though the flames probably wouldn't even touch them, which can be weird.
 * 18) For a Bomberman game, Act Zero does not even use the same formula. Instead, it uses the different one that no one would actually reuse it for a new Bomberman game. The formula in Act Zero is pretty bad, especially since it goes on levels rather than just a simple battle with the AI that are not even levels at all.
 * 19) The announcer sounds mediocre. She sounds like she's bored out of her mind and would actually want to do something else rather than being an announcer for this game. And even if she tries to be at least decent enough, she's still a mediocre announcer, no matter what she says, like "You Win" or "Ready?". Although the developers made the announcer sound robotic, it still failed to make her decent enough.
 * 20) For no reason, the Louies cannot be used as power-ups in this game at all. These are one of the things that appear in the Bomberman series. Also, this is very similar to the inability to jump on enemies in Sonic '06.
 * 21) Konami's decision to use the Bomberman brand for this game is baffling. The grimdark futuristic aesthetic is completely at odds with the Bomberman franchise. And even if Konami tried with that decision, the grimdark futuristic aesthetic is not good for a Bomberman game.
 * 22) * Not to mention, it is the reason why Bomberman was redesigned so badly.
 * 23) Unbalanced AI. The enemies will literally do everything to avoid bombs, basically just to hide from them. Also, sometimes the enemies don't even realize that there's a bomb that has a long explosion that it will reach and kill them. The enemies can even stand on the way where the flame can reach them if the bomb explodes, and they won't even move at all, just stand and wait until the flame will reach and kill them.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Despite being forgettable, the music is good, especially the level victory theme, as expected from a Bomberman game.
 * 2) There's a lifebar! This makes the game much less difficult.

Aggregate score

 * Metacritic - 34/100

Review scores

 * GameSpot - 2.9/10

Critical reception
Bomberman: Act Zero received overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics and fans of the Bomberman series. Most of the criticism were about the loading times, collision detection, soundtrack being forgettable, use of the same textures and graphics for every stage, gameplay, lack of a save feature, A.I. and the series' unwelcome shift to a darker and more futuristic setting. On Metacritic, it has a critic score of 34/100, based on 41 critic reviews, while Metacritic's users gave the game 2.1/10, based on 48 ratings. GameSpot gave the game 2.9/10.

This also listing ranked 96 out of 100 of the Tat's Shittiest games.

Due to it's flaws, it is not only considered to be the worst Bomberman game, but also one of the worst video games ever made.

Trivia

 * This was the first game in the Bomberman series to take place in a futuristic time and dark environment.
 * Bomberman: Act Zero was the last main series game to be released in the series, as only certain spin-off titles would be released in the years to come, and most of the other titles were released digitally on gaming stores such as WiiWare, etc. It wasn't until Super Bomberman R for the Nintendo Switch where there was another physical title in the main series.
 * The game, along with Sonic 06, were seen as parodies in the Family Guy episode, The New Adventures of Old Tom.

Videos
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