Among the most addictive and just plain fun Xbox Live Arcade games.
The Bad:
Sound is enough to make you want to gouge your ears out between the repetitive music and the announcer, once your addiction is gone you may not want to play it too often anymore.
I've never really played too many Bomberman games before, I've played one on the Game Boy Advance and another on the N64. I wish I had been into Bomberman games a long time ago, I had no idea what I was missing.
Gameplay: A lot of fun to play, and is very easy to pick up and give it a go. Playing against CPU opponents on Easy is a great way to start the game if you don't know how to play, and then jumping online after you're satisfied is a good idea. The gameplay is basically dropping bombs to knock out your opponents, and there are a few other fun gametypes where you're a "Zombie" and you keep coming back, but the squares that you painted are gone. Overall, the gameplay of Bomberman is simple and fun. That's all you need in a XBLA game right?
Graphics: A lot better then the standards of most Xbox Live Arcade titles, and at least they're not just shiny 2D graphics like most of the Xbox Live Arcade titles seem to be today. The 3D character models all look good, on SDTV there are some jaggies but on an HDTV everything is smooth. Bomberman Lives looks good in both HDTV and SDTV, but you're better of playing in HDTV if you want better sound and picture quality (obviously.)
Sound: The music is catchy, but that doesn't mean that it isn't repetitive. A lot of the sound is just a nuisance, it would have been nice if the announcer hadn't been added into the game, because it makes me want to play the game on mute. There are a lot of cool sound effects in the game, and I'd like to hear them, not hear what power up I just got by an announcer that sounds like she drank way too much coffee.
Value: The game is very highly addictive and fun, and I've even got my FPS loving brother into the game. You know the game is fun whenever your older non-gamer brother wants to play it instead of Halo 2.
Final Words:
Overall, Bomberman is a very fun and simple game to play. Though the experts of the game may take away some of the fun online, you'll still have fun: win or loose.