A Wild West bank robber has a posse after him, but when they go too far and torch his ranch home and kill his wife, he sets out for revenge by bombing everything in sight.  Run around mazes, placing bombs that explode in four directions to blow up obstacles and defeat enemies.  If this sounds like Bomberman, that’s because it’s nearly EXACTLY like Bomberman, just with a western theme.  It’s available to download on Switch, Xbox One, and PC, but reviewed on Switch here.

In the adventure mode, you’ll have to tackle chapters with randomly generated mazes.  Run around 2-D areas placing bombs to defeat enemies and blow up parts of the level blocking your path.  Just don’t get caught in the blast yourself or you’ll lose hit points.  Lose all your hearts and it’s Game Over.  If you defeat enough enemies, you’ll level up and can select a power-up, like longer reaching bomb blasts, more health, and much more.  You can also pick up special items you can use as long as you have enough Spirit Energy.  These include things like a pistol, healing potions, and more.  There are also bosses to fight and they seem to be randomly generated as well.  So no two games will be exactly the same.  And no good Bomberman ripoff would be caught dead without a multiplayer mode, so this one has that, too.

The Wild West theme is kind of interesting and I do like the pixelly graphics.  When you enter a shop, the game will switch to a 3-D view inside the building, but the visuals are still pixelated, so that was a neat effect.  The only problem I had with the game is that it’s so gosh darn hard. If you die in Adventure Mode you have to start back over at the last chapter and you lose all your powers.  Plus I’ve just never been able to get into Bomberman games for some reason.  Which is strange because normally I love games where you run around mazes chasing after things (like Pac-Man).  But if you can’t get enough Bomberman, you may want to check this one out anyway.

Kid Factor:

Bombslinger is rated E-10 with ESRB descriptors of Crude Humor, Fantasy Violence, and Tobacco Reference.  You can blow up people with bombs and shoot them with guns, but they just turn into dust, Wile E. Coyote style, when defeated.  And your character always has a cigar stub hanging from his mouth.  Reading skill is helpful for the text and younger players may find the game too difficult.

Tags: Game Reviews