Hudson Soft

An attractive-looking minimalist presentation and a craving for some good puzzle action drew me to Hudson's Honeycomb Beat, and its budget price sealed the deal. Although it started strong and seemed to hold a lot of promise, I'm not quite sure I got my $20 worth—this unorthodox puzzler fizzled out fast.

According to ESRB, this game contains: Blood, Violence

In my recent write up of the putrid NanoBreaker, my opening comment was that killing robots as an end unto itself is boring and a waste of time—unless there's a hook. I stand by that statement, but I think it's cosmically ironic that immediately after wrapping up a review for a terrible robot-killing game, I'm writing a review for a good one. I guess it just goes to show that in the right hands, even the most seemingly unappealing or dreary subject matter can shine.

Now comes Bloody Roar 4. Technically fourth (although really the sixth if you count cross-system updates) it's the perfect example of the sort of game that seems to poised to make its mark on the world and then inexplicably proceeds to hang out at the local mall for its entire adult life.

According to ESRB, this game contains: Blood, Violence

Game Description: In the beginning there was the Beast Kingdom, where four in five inhabitants were beast people known as "Zoanthropes". Called upon to protect the kingdom, some of the Beast Warriors provided their services to other countries in the Zoanthropes Mercenary Brigade. Fighting became a major source of income for the kingdom, and so it was that the ultimate Zoanthrope fighting tournament came to be. The tournament develops the skills of Beast Warriors and strengthens the Zoanthropes Mercenary Brigade. The winner will take home a handsome prize, and the title of "Zoanthrope Champion."

I'd like to start off by saying that Bomberman Tournament's title is deceiving. Though it does have a multiplayer mode within, Hudson Soft's focus lies squarely on its completely irrelevant single-player story mode.

I dont think anyone could have predicted how quickly the Game Boy Advance would develop a library of great multiplayer games. Super Mario Advance, F-Zero, and Chu Chu Rocket! lit up the launch with great features that allowed four players to play together using a single cartridge. But the reason you are probably reading this is to hear that Bomberman Tournament is nearly identical to the Super NES and Saturn versions, which would actually be great news for Bomberman fans and Game Boy Advance owners.

According to ESRB, this game contains: Mild Violence

Game Description: In Bomberman Tournament, players take the original Bomberman on a rescue mission for Bomberman Max, who has fallen out of communication since being dispatched to the planet Phantarion to answer an SOS call. The popular Bomberman series comes to the Game Boy Advance system with 10 types of weapons and power-ups, eight four-player maps, and more than 200 room-based puzzles.