Bomberman vs Zombies: Detonate your way through multiple levels of zombie droll.
Apparently this is an “irresistible” game… yes… they’ve used that adjective in their Google Play description twice! It’s one of the top games on Blackberry and it has more than 3 million downloads worldwide. So how is this Android port?…. hmmm…. meh….
Gameplay: Imagine a Bomberman style grid view, but instead of a uniform distribution of columns, there are more varied maps with rooms and destructible crates. The aim is to lay bombs in order to obliterate the zombies which roam around freely. After bombing enough zombies or collecting the key then the exit hatch will open and you can pass to the next round.
In true Bomberman style there are powerups hidden underneath crates and these can help you as you go through destroying the brainless living dead. Though half the time there are negative effect items as well as zombies hidden underneath the boxes.
All sounds fine and dandy so far right? On the graphics side of things, the menus and the images all look pretty cool. The nice clean vector graphics give the zombies a good sheen finish. Visually, everything looks appealing and the little figures are kind of cuteish. Thinking about it… good graphics are to be expected for a game which has been downloaded on the Blackberry App World 3 million times.
If so many people have downloaded this game, then is it automatically going to be fun on the Android too? Well it should be good… it looks smooth… and attractive… but the reality is that the controls are so abysmally bad that the developers should be shot!
Diabolical controls: You’re given a touch relative D pad which you can start almost anywhere on the screen… though generally you’re going to be controlling this in the bottom left hand corner with your left thumb. My irk with the interface probably comes from the fact that your character can walk anywhere on the grid. (So he’s not forced to walk uniformly on the grid layout like in Hudson’s Bomberman.) By not restricting the character to the grid means that it’s very easy to get stuck going round corners. Imagine how often you had to dash round corners in the old bomberman game… it’s a lot right? You also need to stay stationery quite often because you’re waiting for bombs to explode. But with this d-pad it’s incredibly difficult to stop moving, and if you let go of the screen then you can lose time when you retouch the screen to start moving again.
You can see the D-pad is basically underneath the advert! Did you know that there are actually 7 or 8 bats flying around on this level?
Sacrilege: The Contlex developers have used the Bomberman name, but haven’t done enough to create a package which is fun enough to warrant them to use this majestic title. Some of the ingredients are there but unfortunately the controls are a continual struggle. There are also awfully placed adverts on the free version which totally obstruct your vision of the map. They’re at the bottom of the screen so it’s so easy to lose touch control and click on the advert!
Rating: 2/5 A slightly repetitive game with unpredictable, randomly moving zombies. Diabolical controls destroy this game and make it annoying instead of fun, which is such a shame because the graphics and sound effects are all in place for a decent bit of gameplay and enjoyment. I suggest you all go and download the free version of this game just so that you can understand how crazy these developers are and so you can remind yourselves how awesome the original Bomberman was!
Bomberman vs Zombies Tips from Android Games Review
- Play without wifi or internet connection so the ads aren’t in the way. Unfortunately I’m not suggesting the paid version of the game because the controls are just so bad.
- Try and get used to starting your touch somewhere where you’ll have plenty of space to move your thumb around.
- The game is only really playable when you get the remote control detonator.
- On some rounds, the powerups which you can collect at the beginning make it much more viable to kill the zombies which walk around. But if you die you’ll lose your powerups. So if you’re on one of those stages and you die, then just quit and reload the game because there’s no point in struggling without the powerups and causing yourself to lose more lives.
Bomberman vs Zombies QR Code
(Click on the image or scan the barcode with your Android phone to goto Google Play)
Developers: Contlex
