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Bomberman games are all about fast-paced action and keeping on your toes. This, however, throws that out the window and turns it into a turn-based strategy game that's almost like Chess. Except with explosions.

And somehow, it's actually quite good! You control a king and four units, all with differing traits in terms of how far they can move, how far away they can place a bomb, and their special moves. Your mission is to conquer more land by killing their kings before they kill your own, and in the process you get more units to tinker with, and at the edges of the map there'll be a dastardly boss.

I admit I wasn't expecting a lot from this, and only got it because it was pretty cheap (£5.50!), so I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be really quite fun. It definitely won't be for everyone, though, but it's a nice alternative to the likes of Age of Empires. I think.

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This is actually two games in one: The title game, Dynamite Deka (localised as Die Hard Arcade), and a completely unrelated arcade game, Deep Scan. The latter is merely a way to get more credits/lives for Dynamite, as you start off with a pitifully low four, so to stand a chance you'll need to bomb some submarines before you save the president's daughter.

Dynamite Deka is essentially Virtua Fighter as a beat-em-up, as they share the same little quirks. Punching makes your character step a fair bit forward, jumping is slow and floaty, grabbing is difficult, and being hit while falling down from an attack is fair play. There are a number of ridiculous over-the-top weapons, including missile launchers, anti tank rifles, and mops, but the primary problem with the game is that your character is just too sluggish. Simple tasks such as jumping and picking up a weapon are enough for enemies to start an attack on you, and this is a game that could definitely have benefited from a block ability, as later in the game enemies will lie on the floor where you can't reach them and shoot at you, as well as throw bombs and swords in your face.

Of course, beat-em-ups aren't particularly known for being fair, and it's still very enjoyable, as it's hard to be angry at it when the characters are kneeing each other in the groins and throwing each other across the room and fighting afro chicks teamed up with sumo wrestlers and robots.

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I haven't played this, but I may as well keep up my track record of giving all football games a zero score, simply because I'm a biased bitch. If it isn't Mega Man's Soccer or Nintendo World Cup, then there's no point.

And Google image search sucks when it comes to finding screenshots. That's what I got.

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Saturn Bomberman is, in a nutshell, Mega Bomberman 2. Except a million times better. The Louies are replaced by Dinos/Tirras although they work exactly the same, there are some wackier items at hand (The Merger!), the Normal Game is now co-operative, and of course, the largely talked about 10-Player multi-player. And a few other things but yeah you get the picture already don't you yes you do.

I'm afraid I'd have to agree with everyone on the internet that this is the best Bomberman game ever. The multi-player is fantastic, the main game has the traditional gameplay but adds enough things to make it stand out above the rest, and the fact they even added a third mode is fantastic. It's a pity the single-player game wasn't harder, but can't win 'em all.

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I thought I was buying Saturn Bomberman and a multi-tap when I won this, but I was quite the fool! It's apparently a version that can go online and fight three other people in Battle Mode. But since the XBAND service is long dead, all I'm left with is an endless game of Master Mode where I have to defeat the same patterned enemies over and over until I'm happy with my score. And I spent £16 on this. Thanks a million, XBAND.

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While the rest of the world and the Nintendo 64 got Bomberman 64, Japan and the SEGA Saturn got Saturn Bomberman Fight!!. They're both good games in their own, unique ways, and I wouldn't say one is better than the other.

Instead of being fully 3D like the aforementioned, the game is essentially just the 2D games in an isometric view, with new features such as health bars, the ability to jump and back flip, and huge bombs with blast radiuses taking up quarter of the playing field. There are only three modes; Story Mode (mostly one-on-one fights with occasional one-on-twos and lots of talking), Battle Mode (the usual, except with rather minimal options) and Survival Mode (how many one-on-one fights can you handle?). And there's the usual Options and How To Play.

The game is, as expected of Bomberman, very fun, but it does feel rather barebones. The multi-player is back to 4 instead of the original Saturn Bomberman's 10, there's no co-operative in Story Mode, Battle Mode's options are incredibly barebones (you can choose the time, amount of wins, and toggle big bombs and position shuffling; no difficulty changing or anything), and even after I got used to it, the game could seriously have used an actual diagonal control scheme. Plus, it doesn't feel right at all being the sequel to Saturn Bomberman, which was a totally different and much more complete-feeling game. On the bright side (aside from what I just praised), it's fairly cheap to get and Story Mode is the only part with extensive Japanese, and you can still play it without the knowledge of what they're discussing.

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