Most of the games in the Bomberman series are about one thing: getting lots of people in an enclosed area, giving them bombs, and having them try and blow each other up. It’s not as gruesome as it sounds. It’s all very cartoony, very intense, and lots of fun… assuming you can find people to play with.
Atomic Bomberman supports up to eight people in a tiny area, each laying bombs and trying to do each other in, all accompanied by some of the most abrasive voice acting I’ve ever heard. The voice work in this game was done principally by Charles Adler, who is very distinctive and whose range leaves a bit to be desired, and Billy West, who is also very distinctive, but significantly less annoying. Even the limited pool of actors and voice samples wouldn’t be so bad, except that the voices play absolutely all the time. My ears were bleeding within minutes.
Like I said, this game is only really fun if you have multiple players. You can have the computer stand in for any players you have missing, but it’s just not the same. I’m not that good at the game, but the computer is way better than me. I don’t think I ever managed to win. It’s also a bit difficult to trash-talk a computer. Another problem is that, although you can play this game over the Internet, by the time I got hold of it, there were zero games being played. Or, I assume that’s the case, there’s no way to browse for games (and the company that made the game is defunct now). The third big problem is that if you get the maximum of eight players in the match, there are far too many competitors. There are so many players laying so many bombs in so many places that it’s nigh impossible to keep track of them all, and you’ll invariably either die because you got blown up by a bomb that you didn’t even see or you’ll end up with a draw because everyone died because they got blown up by a bomb that they didn’t see.
The best thing about this game has to be that I didn’t spend more than a dollar for it.