Top 52: Bomberman 64 (#46)

This week's game features a Nintendo 64 sleeper hit: Bomberman 64. Many people were upset at the gameplay changes, as Bomberman 64 diverted from its classic style. I thought the change in style was exactly what the franchise needed. I'll dive more into that in the body of this Top 52 segment.

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Title: Bomberman 64
Console: Nintendo 64
Release Date: 12/01/97 (US)
Genre: Action-Adventure
My Ranking: #46

Bomberman 64 has a perfect balance of entertaining multiplayer, challenging single-player, and tons of well hidden golden cards to collect. The music was also surprisingly awesome and fit with the overall theme of bomberman. Bomberman 64 had the complete package of what makes a great game, and even twelve years later I still come back to this old standard every now and again.

The bomberman game took a huge risk by completely changing the old-school gameplay that they had used for the NES, SNES and TG16. In older versions, Bomberman was played from a top-down view and the maps that bomberman walked in were very angular. Bomberman could place bombs down and they would explode in a “+” pattern. This means you could avoid a bomb by simply moving one block horizontally and one block vertically. It was simple, but still fun.

Bomberman 64 ignored this standard and made a 3D adventure game. Bombs would now explode spherically, leaving you no safe spot whatsoever if you were anywhere near the bomb. In one-player mode, this means you had to be really strategic about how you use your bombs. You could try and plant bombs in front of an enemy and run away. Or, you could try and kick the bomb to the enemy from a safe distance. Or, you could even pump up your bombs by grabbing them, mashing the A button and tossing them to your foe.

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Despite going into a 3D landscape, the gameplay still stayed very simple. You can lay down bombs with one button, and the game helps you out by telling you where your goal is on each stage. Getting to that goal may require you to hit some carefully placed switches or maybe blow up some bridges along the way. Regardless, figuring out how to beat a stage may take you awhile, but it is not impossible to figure out what you need to do.

If you’re really good, you can complete the main story within a couple of hours. There is a story of some sort, but you won’t love this game for it’s riveting tale of bad guys trying to take over the world. What you’ll really love about this game are the extras in the one-player mode, as they appeal to almost every type of gamer.

Each world has 4 stages that you need to complete, two of which are adventure/puzzle orientated while the other two are bosses. Within each of those stages you can try and collect five golden cards. These cards will unlock different costumes for bomberman, extra stages in the multiplayer mode and a hidden, crazy difficult world called the Rainbow Palace. Getting all the cards is enough to drive you mad but they add so much to the game’s replay value.

In the adventure/puzzle stages, 3 golden cards are hidden throughout the map, usually in places that require you to think very creatively. In the one stage of the game, a warp tile is seemingly out of reach unless you create a bomb ladder by stacking bombs on top of each other. It’s incredibly hard to pull this off, but very satisfying once it’s done (see video below for a crazy example). This type of gameplay appeals to the explorer type of gamers. The fourth golden card is always a kill count card, meaning you have to kill 30 enemies in that stage to obtain it. So if you like blowing things up, bomberman has got your back. Lastly, the fifth card is a speed run card. If you beat the stage before the allotted time, you’ll get the last card of that stage. Bomberman 64 combines the styles of exploring, killing and fast play all in their extras. It’s a brilliant idea that keeps you playing the game in different ways.



The five golden cards in the boss battles will also keep you entertained. Depending on the boss, you may have to hit certain spots of the boss, or kill off optional area of the boss altogether. The last card is still a speed run card though, so chances are it will take you multiple battles to collect all five cards. The bosses are hard enough to begin with, requiring you to have pinpoint accuracy in throwing bombs. In addition, the game usually puts you right in front of the boss’ attacks. You’ll die often if it’s you’re first time playing, but since figuring out how to beat the boss is easy, you’ll push on until you execute your strategy correctly. This way, if you do get frustrated, you’ll most likely be frustrated at your play, not the design of the game.

The game does not stop will the immensely entertaining one-player mode however. If you have three friends, you’ll have a blast (no pun intended) in the multiplayer mode. Or, if you only have one friend (you anti-social person), you can put in computer bots. In multiplayer, you’re bombs are still in their 3D form and you can now kick bombs into your friends, hopefully stunning them and then blowing them up. You can collect items by blowing up boxes, which will give you more bombs, give you a status effect, etc.

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Strategy isn’t really that important in the multiplayer mode. Throw and kick enough bombs in the right places and you have a good chance at winning. Since every one is completely balanced at the start though, you’ll find that the gameplay is extremely competitive and blowing up your friends never gets old. Even better, when your friend is stunned, you can pick them up. If you’re close enough to the edge of the stage, you can then throw them off the map. Try it sometime; it’s a satisfying way to kill someone.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with Bomberman 64. The one-player campaign is a little short, but it makes up for it with all the extras you can try to collect. Bomberman 64 is a complete game that went severely underappreciated for the Nintendo 64. There have been numerous games in the Bomberman series before and after this game, but nothing has even come close to the explosiveness that was this game.

Alright, maybe THAT pun was intended.
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My Top 52:
#52 --- Star Fox 64 (N64)
#51 --- Kirby's Adventure (NES)
#50 --- Roller Coaster Tycoon (PC)
#49 --- Grand Theft Auto III (PS2)
#48 --- Metroid Prime (GC)
#47 --- Halo 3 (Xbox 360)
#46 --- Bomberman 64 (N64)
#45 --- Revealed on 8/26

Mega Man 3 Title Music with Lyrics

I just recieved this hilarious video from my close friend Chris. I talked about Chris in a previous post, about how we plan to beat Mega Man 9 together in one night. Needless to say, he loves Mega Man, especially the NES ones. I, too, am a crazed Mega Man fan. Maybe that's why I thought this video was hysterical.


Hidden Link! Good Job!
The music for this introduction is epic on its own, but the lyrics add a whole other level. "Kill a robot fish, kill a robot frog, and then I ride off on my robot dog." Ah, it's wonderful what people can do with their free time.

BC Advanced Strategies: Connect Four

This Saturday’s feature is a BC Advanced Strategy segment. The game of choice for this week is Connect Four. Most of you have probably played this game in some form or another and probably played it when you were really young. It’s a simple game, as your goal is to just get four-in-a-row. You don’t even need the actual Hasbro game to play it; you can easily make the 6x7 board using pencil and paper.

This game has no luck factor, so there is a wealth of strategy involved with this game. In fact, in 1988, mathematician James D. Allen solved Connect Four. He showed, that with perfect play, the player who goes first can always win. We won’t be looking into that strategy today (it’s a little complicated) and if you do run into someone who knows how to do the perfect play, you probably don’t want to play against them anyway.

Here are some simpler, general strategies you can use against your friends in Connect Four:
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1. Surround and conquer. If your opponent is building in the center, try and cover his outs by building on top of him. Just be careful that when you are building on top however, so that you don’t let your competitor build horizontal three-in-a-row in the process. I prefer staying on the offensive myself though, so if you see an opportunity to make a three-in-a row go for it.

2. Always look for force wins. When you see a lot of one color being placed in one area, look for possibilities on how to make (or stop) your opponent from forcing a win. Often times you’ll see someone making a three-in-a-row diagonal directly attached to a three-in-a-row horizontal, which would make that person win in two vertically adjacent spots. This is a great strategy as it forces you to block one win, only to lose on the next turn. Think ahead on every turn and see if you can capitalize on or stop this from happening.

3. Forced moves can give you better position. Building three-in-a-row upwards will rarely go past your competitor’s eye and they will have no choice but to block it, unless they want to lose. They effectively waste a turn blocking your three-in-a-row and now you have three of your color all stacked together, which can be easily built next to, and now have multiple ways to branch out. You opponent will have a tough time blocking off all your routes as a result, giving you good position.

4. Try to kill off columns if you’re in a bad position. Especially when your going second in a match, you may feel like you’re always playing reactionary defense to what your friend is doing. To make things simpler, try getting a three-in-a-row that would lead to a win in the 2nd or 6th columns. You’ll cut the board down in size and possibly mess up your opponents plans. If they are trying to stop you from killing off a column, they’re probably wasting moves themselves, so change your strategy and build on top of them to gain control.

5. When your opponent is thinking, count the spots left on the board. Near the end-game, there should be few enough spots where you count who is going to go where when you are forced to place in those dead columns. Count the spots silently and see if you are going to block yourself or give your competitor an easy win. If the situation doesn’t look for you, try to build a three-in-a-row in another spot and hope that your opponent doesn’t notice an easy win for you. On the other hand, if you count spots and see that you are going to win, force a stalemate up to that point. Play defense and cover up anything that could give your competitor another three-in-a-row.

6. Always start in the middle. If you’re going first, start in the middle. It’s always the best play and it will give you the most outs. If you’re going second, you should either play right on top of the center for balance or on either of the two columns from the center for defense. Playing directly next to the center will give your opponent a chance to build either a two-in-a-row diagonal, or a two-in-a-row horizontal. It looks nicer, but it gives you less of an advantage.

I used to play Connect Four all the time with my older brother and he was always really good at this game. It felt really good when I first beat him, as Connect Four was one of the first board games in which I started to really think strategically. Now, I share with you the strategies I go through when playing this fun little game.

And on a side note, I’ve been hearing from my friends that they don’t want to play these board games (that I’ve shown in the advanced strategies segment) with me anymore. That’s not fair people! I play strategically but, it can still be fun! Besides, now that you know how I think, you can use my own strategies against me. So… bring it!

A Kongregation of Flashy Statistics

Gasp, it's Friday, and I haven't made my post on Table Salt Games yet! Let's take a look at Richard's last post. He played the flash version of Portal on Newgrounds? Allow me to explain why this is both foolish, and a great idea, but first, some background.



Kongregate is a site containing oodles and oodles of flash games. There are tons of sites like that, what makes this one special is that you can register for it. That is more of a drawback than a plus, until you realize that once you register, you can earn badges by completing certain tasks. For example, in Portal: The Flash Version, you can earn the "Cakewalk" badge by completing level 5, and the "Deceptive Dessert" badge by completing level 40. (Both of which I have done.)

What do these badges do? They give you points, which become associated with your profile. And these points, surely they must do something, right? Of course not. If this sounds eerily familiar, then you are aware of the Xbox 360's achievement system. Instead of badges, you get achievements, and instead a higher point total, you get a higher gamerscore, which is also useless. Since these points don't do anything, most people wouldn't register for Kongregate, or bother playing easy games on Xbox to get a higher gamerscore, right?



If you thought that, you would be dead wrong. Even though these scores are nothing more than a worthless 'e-penis' people go bananas for them. This is beginning to encroach on an idea I have for a Will and Beyond post, but numbers really motivate people. So why is Richard playing this game on Newgrounds versus Kongregate foolish? He's not earning precious points! On the other hand, why is it a great idea? Once you start collecting points, you don't want to stop, and there goes your time.

My labmate and I are in competition for points, and it can hurt your productivity if you're not careful. Speaking of points, you also get points for referring people, so if this post has made you want to sign up, and you haven't yet developed a disdain for me, use this referral link when you sign up.

There is a countless number of great games over at Kongregate, but to avoid ruining Richard's new Flash Friday column by giving you a huge list of them, I'll just give you two good ones, Shift and Desktop Tower Defense. The former is Portal-esque, and the latter is a huuuuge time drain, but a fun time drain.

Photo: Flickr

Godspeed.

Flashy Friday: Portal

I know what you're thinking, Portal is it's own first-person shooter/puzzle video game, not a flash game. That is completely true but, there is also a 2D platforming version available of Newgrounds. The game pretty much plays exactly like Valve's Portal, except now you're in 2D and the difficulty is bordering on insane. Weirdly enough, the flash version of Portal was the first version of Portal I played, which made me play Valve's original masterpiece.

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The guy who created this flash game really did a superb job with the level design. Sentry guns (spies keep sappin' my sentry!) are strategically placed where if you don't use a companion cube or create a portal for them to disappear, you're going to get shot, and most likely die. The end-game levels are just ridiculous with moving platforms tat will lead you to death if you don't place your portals perfectly along the way.

Aiming is real nice though, since you use the mouse over the screen and press either Q, E or left click for a portal. There are forty levels for you to mess around with and you are almost guaranteed not to beat this in one day. Don't worry though, this flash game will save your progress and provide you a great challenge.

Click here for a link to Portal via Newgrounds. I suggest playing the game in a pop-up version so your screen was freak out if you accidentally scroll up or down with your mouse. I'm currently stuck on level 38. No cake for me, yet.

Sharing Video Game Manuals

A site called Replacementdocs.com offers an interesting service related to video games. People can upload images of their video game manuals and then anyone can download them. Apparently, a lot of people have submitted to this site as they have a wide variety of game manuals, including ones from recent games or manuals for the Atari 2600.

Old video game manuals are often a lot of fun as you get to see artist’s renderings of 8-bit characters. Some of them even provide useful information, maybe providing maps or point values for certain enemies. A lot of people, including myself, just throw out the manual and pop in the game as soon as they get it. Hence, replacementdocs seems like a really wonderful and helpful service.

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However, this site is far from being legal, as it’s allowing access to copyrighted material. What replacementdocs does is no different from any average Joe scanning a novel in its entirety and then placing it on the internet for people to download. The person who has copyright on that material loses out on possible revenue they could gain from selling that book.

The majority of manuals on replacementdocs are out-of-print and even if you have an old game, I highly doubt you can call Nintendo (or Atari) and ask for a replacement manual, which makes replacementdocs helpful. However, copyright law as I know it (hell, I don’t know much about law) covers the author of the work up to seventy years past their death, which means that all video games and all products made with the video game (i.e. manuals) are still covered for a long time. Therefore, all of the manuals on replacementdocs are going against copyright law.

Sure, this is illegal, but I doubt many companies will do anything about it. Just because replacementdocs is performing an illegal act does not mean that the publishers of the video game will sue. Actually, this illegal act may be beneficial for the company as it will put there name out there to the public more easily. This, in turn, could lead to people being interested in the game (or other games in the series) just by seeing the manual. Video game publishers are always looking to put their names out there so that they can gain more revenue. Upon seeing a site like replacementdocs, these companies probably did a cost-benefit analysis and thought that this service is beneficial, especially since it didn’t cost them any money to host the site or upload the manuals.

This same logic could probably be applied to sites that host illegal ROMs to download. Older games are not being produced anymore, so putting them out free to download might actually help the company keep interest among new consumers. This being said, Table Salt does not condone downloading questionable content. If you have interest in a game (or manual), rent it or buy it. Developers and publishers need the money in order to make more great games, so every bit helps. Also, while you can go to replacementdocs, download the manuals at your own risk.

Playing with Yourself

My dad sent me an article in which former Sony executive and current boss of Infogrames, Phil Harrison, was quoted as saying the following about single-player games:

“I don't think the industry is going to make many more of those. I just don't think consumers want to be playing games that don't have some kind of network connectivity to them, or some kind of community embedded in them, or some kind of extension available through downloadable content.

Now, that's not to criticize Alone in the Dark [Infogrames’ upcoming single-player title] - it's just to recognize the industry is changing, and the role we play as creators and publishers has to reflect those changes. I don't think I'm alone in having those views, either.”

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Harrison is hinting that he believes that single-player games are dying out as more people want multiplayer and online connectivity. I think Harrison could not be farther from the truth.

Multiplayer games, both competitive and co-op are gaining a ton of revenue right now and have been for quite awhile. Tons of people play shooters online from Halo 3, Call of Duty 4 and Team Fortress 2. World of Warcraft has over ten million players and aside from adding an expansion every couple of years, all Blizzard has to do is maintain and balance the game. Guitar Hero and Rock Band are hot commodities as well. Multiplayer gaming has really expanded out from the 4-player excitement that was the Nintendo 64.

But to think that single-player games will die out is simply ludicrous. Top-selling games are always mixed with multiplayer and single-player games. Final Fantasy, Mario, Zelda, and Metal Gear Solid are single-player games that have consistently shown, both over the past and present, that people buy and play games that focus on the single-player campaign.

There are thousands of gamers, including myself, that enjoy single-player experiences. Some in-game stories are so powerful that I feel as though I am playing in an interactive novel. To eliminate that experience and focus solely on multiplayer games would only cause the industry to negate the player expansion that they are having right now. The video game industry is expanding out to casual and multiplayer gamers from its base of core gamers; it’s building on top of itself, not changing completely.

Single-player games aren’t just solo experiences for the gamer. If you’ve ever played a Final Fantasy game or a Metal Gear Solid game, you become so invested in the story that you almost can’t help but talking about the game’s plot with another friend. Some people even enjoy watching single-player games. I love watching my roommate dominate Mega Man X and my girlfriend enjoys watching me play some RPGs especially if she can be a “techie” and look over a strategy guide while I play.

Games, whether multiplayer or not, invoke human contact and interaction and create their own community. A great single-player game doesn’t just stay with the gamer who played it. Great games are shared with a friend as the both of you go all giddy over some awesome cut scene, cool special attack or some plot twist.

Harrison is likely saying that single-player games are dying out because he would prefer it to be that way for his company. The article I linked before says it best: “Their job isn't to tell you how it ought to be in some pure philosophical space, it's to tell you how they'd prefer it to be, and it should come as no surprise that both are working like mad on major multiplayer initiatives. If multiplayer gaming were doomed, just to play devil's advocate, they'd each be out of a job, in other words.”

The video game industry needs more people who want to make great games, not just to make money. There are too many people like Harrison that just want to follow the trend and take the safe route because of what is popular. Harrison sounds as though he fears going against the grind because in this case, making a single-player game has too many risks right now. Maybe Harrison should follow the advice my political journalism professor, Kathy Engel, taught me: Creativity is the antidote for fear.