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This is a Bomberman clone by the renowned Assassins group (ASN). It has twenty-four scenes split into four zones. When you first load it up for the first time it presents as a very coollooking game but does it have the staying power to stay a very cool game? John Davies sets more than a few exploding bombs in his mission to find out.

The Plus/4 is a machine without sprites, yet developer Skoro was able to create software sprites. Just how did he do this? He made four real software sprites. The game has a very fast soft sprite routine in it which draws four (one player plus three enemies) sprites. The drawing of fourth enemy is incomplete caused by drawing of the bomb explosion.

The title screen, with it's wonderfully bouncy tune cycles through credits, instructions and Hall of Champions. From the off it becomes immediately apparent that this is a Dyna Blaster/Bomberman clone. You start the game by pressing space or fire. You can enter a passcode to start at the point you've already reached as these are given each time you complete a scene.

The stages of the game are split into zones which are themselves split into scenes. The first stage is Jungle Zone - Scene 1. The status line at the bottom of the screen shows score, lives and time remaining to complete the current scene. When time runs out it doesn't matter how many lives you have remaining it's game over. Once the scene starts and you begin playing you'll probably notice that your little fella positively crawls along without any boosts and then suddenly he becomes The Flash overnight once he puts a sock on.

It seems to have all things Bomberman, like extra bomb bonus, bomb explosion radius bonus and speed up boots bonus, but there are a few differences. Unlike Bomberman your boosts don't carry over to the next scene, there's no exit to find, you just have to blow up all the bricks in a scene to finish it. The enemies are not quite as clever as those in Bomberman and they don't get blocked by bombs either. The graphics do their job but not much more.

The scenes are not as colourful as I would have expected. The colours seem so limited that It could almost pass as a Spectrum game. The in-game music is almost as jolly as the title screens. It matches the pace of the gameplay quite well.

The game retains most of the important elements in Bomberman and it's fun to play. The tune and sound effects are just divine. So much so you will have them in your head for many hours and weeks after you put down the game. They are just so addictive if not more so than the wonderfully winning formula of the gameplay. Explosions are just so cool - exactly how they should be for a game of this kind.

Your character moves far too slowly. The graphics aren't that colourful for a game of this type. They just feel a little bland for me even though they do change with each new zone you reach.

A decent, fun-to-play Bomberman clone that retains most of what makes the original so good. Music and sound effects are so addictive they are a real standout feature of the game. Overall though I felt it is a bit behind as far as player movement and colourful graphics are concerned. I have seen far worse so for the machine's capabilities Xplode Man remains a very cool game one that Bomberman gamer fans will certainly enjoy.