Bomb the Monsters is like the beautiful love child of Angry Birds and Worms; you blast creepy, slimy monsters off the screen with cartoon-faced bombs whilst trying to protect your Brainless buddies. Actually, maybe it’s not so beautiful after all…but it sure is a hell of a lot of fun!
Immanitas Entertainment are the team that brought us the weird and wonderful platform runner Aloha, in which you have to take lost penguins from their home at the South Pole to, uh, Hawaii; the creative juices must have been flowing thick and fast for Bomb the Monsters, as the scene is set with a painter who’s wife is kidnapped by grumpy monsters who are invading earth. The painter takes it upon himself to become a reluctant hero and rid our world of the insidious aliens and, armed with a clutch of furious-faced bombs, sets out to rescue his wife by any means necessary.
The gameplay is very easy to work out (place bomb and tap detonator), however, there are certain nuances that help you to get past the later levels, such as doubling up on bombs before you detonate them, detonating two bombs at different places on the screen and using the big slug monsters as barriers to protect your ‘Brainless’ friends from falling off the platforms. If you clear all of the monsters with the minimum amount of bombs used, you’ll receive a gold medal; you have to get gold in each level to move forward to the next set of 10 scenarios, meaning there’s no margin for error.
The music is jaunty and fairground-esque, with a progression into a raunchier blues feel as you start playing the ice levels (available in the paid version). The graphics are very cartoonish and I particularly like the facial expressions of the monsters that change from smug to startled as you blow them into the off-screen ether.
Just like Angry Birds, the developers promise new levels as the game gets more widespread, with a Western-themed level ‘Coming Soon’; I predict Halloween and Christmas versions of Bomb the Monsters in the future, regrettably meaning that the painter’s poor wife is going to get kidnapped again and again. Oh well, we all have to make sacrifices in the name of fun.
Word has it that Immanitas has another title launching this week, a game revolving around lost luggage at the airport; I’m sure that it will be as suitably bonkers as their other titles!
