Believe it or not, next year marks the 40th anniversary of Bomberman, Hudson Soft's iconic demolitions expert who turned a simple concept into one of the greatest multiplayer games of all time. In those four decades, our bomb-throwing hero has seen installments published by everybody from Nintendo to Sega to Ubisoft to Activision. With so many different Bomberman games out there, I wanted to take a look back at what Electronic Gaming Monthly's review crew said about the sequels, spin-offs and more.
In case you're wondering, EGM managed to review 18 games in the Bomberman franchise between 1989 and 2009. This includes a wide assortment of action games, platformers, puzzlers and even racing games on a whole bunch of different consoles. From the early 16-bit days all the way up to the modern era, EGM weighed in on most of the biggest Bomberman games. What we're going to do is countdown the best and worst Bomberman games using Electronic Gaming Monthly's own words and scores. There's no editorializing here, we're going to focus on what the critics said back when these games first came out. Join me for this explosive episode of EGM Ranks Bomberman.
Silent Hill: Homecoming (PlayStation 3 & Xbox 360)
#7
"To someone who's been enraptured by this franchise since its inception, this sequel makes for a slightly bittersweet homecoming. Yeah, its controls are clunky, its brainteasers hearken back to survival-horror's early days, and it's painful to backtrack through an entire level to search for a single item you might've missed. Despite all of these issues, Homecoming has its moments – particularly of the crazy, grotesque sort that produce the ‘can't look away from the horrible car accident” effect. I couldn't help but want to see what happened next." (7.1 out of 10)
Silent Hill Origins (PSP)
#6
"Survival horror relies so much on presentation to create the atmosphere that I was really skeptical to Silent Hill working on PSP. But Origins completely pulls it off, provided you play in the dark with headphones on. That alone counts for a lot. The lighting, and particularly its ensuing shadows, completely drew me into the tense state of always wondering what's lurking out there. But, I grew increasingly frustrated struggling to reach the next save point, out of healing herbs, with weapons falling apart in my hands." (7.2 out of 10)
Silent Hill 4: The Room (PlayStation 2 & Xbox)
#5
"The scratchy filters and corridors of gory filth, the inhuman horrors and half-heard cries for help – none of these things are disturbing anymore to Silent Hill vets. Where familiarity blunts frights, backtracking leads to frustration, but The Room menaces you with more than multipart puzzles and death in dark places. Gazing through your apartment's windows, glimpsing ordinary life as it goes on outside, makes your cabin fever much more intense. It also introduces a cerebral angle to a genre that's left little to the imagination and makes it all the more unnerving as the hell on the other side of the hole in your wall closes in." (7.5 out of 10)
Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams (Xbox)
#4
"Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams is a ballsy, psychologically taxing game any adventure gamer should experience. The nightmarish ambience of Silent Hill and the cadaver-esque character designs add up to make this, hands down, the most disturbing video game ever. It's an artistic endeavor and I applaud the developers. But to experience all four different endings, you've got to decipher some really obscure puzzles and battle against a clumsy, infuriating interface. These issues really snap you out of the zone; you worry less about the fog, or the darkness, or those slothy zombies, and pray you don't run into another one of those puzzles in the next room." (8 out of 10)
Silent Hill 2 (PlayStation 2)
#3
"Silent Hill 2 is, hands down, the scariest game ever made. Just writing about it gives me the creeps. But does that chill factor translate into greatness, or is it just aesthetic fluff? To their credit, the developers have done a lot of control tweaks to make SH2 one of the more playable survival-horror titles. Plus, the story, with its surprises and multiple endings, is much more compelling and makes more sense than the prequels. But to experience all of that, you've got to wade through some incredibly tedious and arbitrary puzzles and lots of fetch the key-style gameplay. If you're patient enough, SH2 will cough up the goods. Otherwise, you may get frustrated." (8.3 out of 10)
Silent Hill (PlayStation)
#2
"Resident Evil is to Night of the Living Dead as Silent Hill is to Hellraiser. Talk about a creey game! It starts off slow, but once you get an hour into it, things can get really tense (although you will run into long, drawn-out periods of uneventfulness). Speaking of Resident Evil, you can see the influences everywhere (and I do mean everywhere), so if you're an RE fan, do not miss out on this one. By the way, do you let your children see this game." (8.6 out of 10)
Silent Hill 3 (PlayStation 2)
#1
"Silent Hill 3 is easily the best horror adventure yet and contains the most effective use of atmosphere in any title I've ever played. While SH2 shows all of its creepy cards at once, SH3 inches out the scares with excellent pacing – there are numerous frightening little moments that'll resonate in your mind long after you've beaten it. And although it's definitely one of the PS2's best-looking games, the audio is truly the best feature. Often, you'll hear little cries in the night, the forlorn sounding call of a horn, or howls in the distance – unsettling stuff indeed. SH3 has a few minor rough edges (the analog control is loose, for one) and it drags a bit near the end, but that's it. Scary AND fun." (8.7 out of 10)
