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Blowaway Bob is a curious Minesweeper/Bomberman hybrid puzzle game. You have a limited number of bombs to which you must clear a safe path to the exit door. Misplace a bomb and it's game over. Pressing the fire button brings up the direction arrow indicator, move this around to where you want to throw the bomb and press fire again to throw it. Hopefully along the correct path.

However, all is not as it seems. The first level seems stupidly easy, yes, well you might not finish the level as quick as first suspected; the player can only walk continually in a straight line until a wall stops him, or he goes through the exit door. This means that blowing any wall down will not work as only the correct blow-up strategy will pave the way to the exit route.

There are no options to choose from, no difficulty settings, just the basic controls and the fire button. One annoyance that I can't seem to get around though is the exclusion of a reset, or give up option; similar to the Lemmings one where you can nuke the games when you are in an un-winnable situation like using all the bombs and still no path to the exit.

Advance to the later levels and you come across bug eyed monsters just waiting to jump you if you walk across their path. Also to add variety to the gameplay there are matter-teleport holes, which you can go through and appear at the other side of the screen at the hole's exit. As you progress, you're faced with more walls, more bombs and it gradually gets harder. It gets frustratingly hard as when you die, it's game over; back to the beginning.

Graphics are pretty good, but they aren't animated as such and the main sprite stutters across the screen one block at a time. Sound is also minimalist with odd bleeps and blips. Despite these minor issues and bugs, I found myself enjoying the game for a while, until it gets frustratingly hard that is.

I'm not much of a puzzle fan myself so I wasn't expecting much out of this game. While the graphics are adequate, the rest of the package lets the game down badly. Poor sound and terrible gameplay flaws mean that you might not be playing this game for very long. Stick to Lemmings or Megablasters instead.

Get to level five.

Graphics 73%
P. Very well drawn and detailed...
N. But animation is limited.

Sound 45%
P. Explosion effects, which is all you need I suppose.

Grab Factor 82%
P. One of those games that you can get into easily.

Staying Power 71%
P. A very challenging game with a steep difficulty setting.

Overall 75%
With a little more time spent on smoothing out the minor issues, this could have been great. As it stands it's a decent game with flaws.