Genre: Party/Multiplayer
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Hudson Soft
Release Date: July 1, 2005

To say that Bomberman has had something of a legacy in console game history would be akin to saying that an elephant is a bit large; ask practically any gamer under the sun about the series, and you'll be able to watch their eyes light up with the wild glee of trapping a former friend between two bombs and hightailing it around the corner. The format of the original was so provocative and tapped into such a primal urge to blow up one's compatriots that the core of the game has remained the same since the series' inception. Now, however, we have a new focus and direction; Bomberman Hardball is here. But can it work? Can our favorite rotund bobble-headed little guy win our hearts over in a new style of game?

Bomberman Hardball tries to win over players with, as is standard procedure in this console generation, a fair variety of different party games designed primarily for multiplayer play but offering plenty of options for single players to try to sink their teeth into. Besides the expected Battle mode, without which no Bomberman game would be complete, players can also pick from Tennis, Golf, and the Baseball of the title. Beyond the choice of games, there is also included a Life mode, where you can watch the little guy go through his daily life.

Let's look at that last one closely. Life mode sounds awfully exciting; one could almost picture an accompanying level-up system or some bizarre version of The Sims, but as it turns out, it is little more than a demonstration and showcase of the game. The camera pans around a cheery, bright house, following Bomberman as he watches television, stares at the wall, or shouts "Wahoo!" at any number of objects in the room.

A menu disguised as a remote allows you to instead set up rolling demos of each of the different game modes; alternatively, you can spend hard-won coins from other modes on buying cosmetic upgrades that you can apply to your personal bomber. It is something of a shame to learn that's all this mode consists of, because it could have been so much more enthralling; restricted to one room and unable to do much but watch demonstrations of games you can already access, Life mode gets boring fast.

Battle mode is precisely what any veteran of the game will expect; there are very few surprises here. Select your Bomberman of choice, choose the map grids and special features to use for that game, and then attempt to blow the heck out of each other with as much speed as you can muster. All of the old options are back, from having randomly generated power-ups at the start of a level to being able to throw bombs into the play area after your death.

Core rules include such things as racing to pick up a crown, collecting as many star power-ups as possible, or just destroying the other players as often as you can in a given time limit. Grab a friend – or three, if you have a multi-tap, which comes heavily recommended for this game – and there's some serious fun to be had here. The action is as addictive as it ever was, and longer levels, such as any with a time limit involved, can quickly devolve into a panicky, tense, raucously hilarious match as Bombermen attempt to weave their way around 20 or more gigantic bomb blasts.

So surely this is a hit, right? Classic Bomberman action on the PlayStation 2, even before we've started looking at the other modes. Unfortunately, there are problems here. First, while the graphics are appropriately cheery and bright, they're also often confusing or make it notably easy to overlook rather critical things such as a bomb in your face. Incredibly, the default camera angle is a perspective view looking from the front of the arena at a slightly lowered angle to the back; in effect, this makes the top of the screen harder to see, as objects there are both further away and blocked by… well… blocks. This is thankfully remedied by a hit of the select button, but without it being listed in the manual, only careful experimentation that was suspiciously similar to slamming the pad against the ground found this method out.

The confusing effects of the graphics are barely noticeable in a multiplayer game where all the players are having the same problems, but it's markedly worse when any computer players are present because of how good the A.I. is at even the lowest level of difficulty. Even on Easy, the computer players will rarely get trapped by anything and keep near-perfect track of where bombs are, effortlessly avoiding the gigantic range bomb blasts while the poor human players who barely saw the thing against the background wonders why they're dead. As if all of this weren't bad enough, the Battle mode also has an alarming tendency to crash, one in about 10 games locking up the console after completion.

Let's move on to Tennis. Now this is more like it – simple but effective controls and lightning-fast play allow for an extremely fun game. While it's still not astounding if you're trying to play single player (which you might do, since the game includes a championship mode with varying difficulties), it is at least playable, and the pinnacle of four players playing doubles on the court makes for an intense and hilarious match that can easily outdo most contemporary party games. The standard options you would expect from any tennis mini-game are here: grass, clay or indoor courts, number of points required to win, and a choice between a number of Bombermen, each with different skills they can bring to bear.

If you happen to be playing single-player, you can take on the tournaments, knockout contests that earn you massive numbers of coins should you manage to battle through and win. It's clear from the first play that the Tennis mode was not designed to be the most incredibly complex addition to the game, but the flair with which it is pulled off arguably makes this the best mode of the lot. It still suffers from an A.I. that doesn't really know when to play dumb, but that barely mars the experience, and the simplicity of the controls and the sheer speed that games can reach actually make for an exciting little game.

The Golf mode is similarly simplistic. If you've played any golf game under the sun, you know how things will work; line up your shot, choose a club, and smack the ball for all you're worth. No surprises here: a power bar trails across the screen then back again once power is selected, with your accuracy determining the spin.

Again, different Bombermen have different tendencies; the small female Bomberwoman is very accurate but not the strongest thing in the world, while the big fat golden Bomberman just likes to smack the poor ball as hard as he can, and far be it for him to put even a little spin on it. Offering four different tours of 18 holes, you would think at first glance that that seems to be a lot; unfortunately, it is actually one course with slightly different backgrounds and green layouts, which can become a little wearying after extended play.

To be fair, the set of holes that are included are actually quite fun. Starting off with the standard straight holes and doglegs, the tour quickly progresses on to such holes as moving up a set of terraces, or crossing a courtyard and garden – you can get a really good bounce off that stone paving – to sinking a putt in the eye of a gigantic green Bomberman picture. Fundamentally, this golf course is light and cheerful, and again, it's quite the blast to play, helped by the fact that the overly clever A.I. appears to break down and cry here, sending golf balls flinging into water and bunkers alike.

Finally, of course, we have the title mode, Baseball. As you might expect, this is where most of the work has gone, with each Bomberman having his own team of clones with stats and favored bowl types to choose and even rearrange, should a player know sufficiently what they're doing. It's similar to most baseball games out there; the pitcher selects a pitch type, aims the ball within an aiming square over the plate, and lets fly; the batter aims his bat to try to match up with the pitch and swings, whereupon the ball inevitably either flies directly backwards or directly forwards, both at an 80-degree angle. The Bomberman scurries off towards first and onwards while the fielder tries to get his troops to the ball in order to get it back to the diamond and get the runner out. Standard baseball fare. Offering both single games and a long-term saveable league system, there's a lot of play potential in this mode, given a single game can take upwards of a couple of hours.

This is where the problems come. The infallibility of the A.I. is most clear here; while an A.I. batter will strike out a fair amount, fielders are perfect. While humans have to contend with working out the ball's arc and controlling what will for most of the arc be an off-screen pitcher, the computer will instantly know where it will land and have someone there waiting, even if it's a fast enough return that most humans couldn't react in time. In the face of such opposition, playing against the computer quickly becomes an exercise in frustration, and while a human can opt to have any number of functions controlled by the computer to try to even the playing field, all this really amounts to is turning a baseball game into a baseball movie with the occasional piece of interaction.

Throughout all of the modes, the graphics remain appropriately cheap and cheerful. While there are no breathtaking vistas or landscape shots anywhere to be seen, they're hardly needed when the most complex thing that requires rendering is a little white guy with an oval head. As stated earlier, things can often get lost amidst contrast problems and poor viewpoints, but this only really becomes a problem in Battle mode. The rest of the time, the choice of color perfectly evokes the Bomberman feel: light and breezy and fun. It would be nice to say the same of the music, and indeed for the first 10 minutes, the score follows along in the same style of happy, cheery tunes. After this, however, it becomes painfully obvious how little music there is in the game, as the repetition of the same two or three different tracks starts to grate upon player nerves.

It can't be denied that Bomberman Hardball has some fun moments. While some sensible advice would be to never go up against a computer player ever, multiplayer offers some fun times and some good old classic Bomberman action. The problem is the level of choice in the game; four playable modes total, none of which offer anything particularly innovative or groundbreaking, is rather slim pickings compared to some of the contemporary party games available today. Bomberman fans will almost certainly get some kind of kick out of this; others are advised to try before they buy, and to be sure that they're equipped with a multi-tap to squeeze out all the fun they can.

Score: 6.2/10