Just when you thought is was safe to look forward to PlayStation2, along comes a great little blow 'em up from Bandai...
Gideon Kibblewhite

Appearance:
A sort of cross between Bomberman, Pitfall and Crackdown.

Argh! How frightful. I thought there was a law against such things.
Now, now - you can't stand in the way of progress.Besides, Silent Bomber is actually a rather refreshing and original take on the action-platformer.

Oh yes? Why so, O Wise Ones?
You run around a war-torn futuristic landscape, collecting stuff and taking on enemy machines. You don't shoot them though, you -

You blow them up with bombs, right?
Err, yes. That's right. How did you guess?

Call it 'gamer's intuition'.
Mmm. Anyway, as you say, you blow them up with bombs and there are two basic ways of doing this, as the nice little training mission at the start of the game explains. First, you can run and jump over to an object, plant a device using the Square button, run to a safe distance, set it off using the Triangle and hey presto, your target is flaming debris.

And the other way?
Ah! Now this is the clever bit. By keeping the Square button depressed you cause a vector to take shape.

A what?
A vector. A three-dimensional triangle-shaped, err, thingy. Didn't you do any maths at school?

No. I was playing truant down the local amusement arcade.
Ah. The vector allows you to target bombs at an enemy. When you're locked-on you can release the Square button, transporting the bomb to the enemy, where it can be detonated.

Sounds awfully complicated.
It's not, actually. You very quickly get to grips with the intuitive controls and the action is very fast and furious, not to mention addictive. The battles you become involved in take the form of close-combat-style rucks: you're often literally surrounded by trundling, stalking and hovering machines (which shoot and even stab you with swords) which block your way round every corner. There are plenty of tough bosses to deal with as well, which can take the form of tanks and huge, crab-like creatures, and it can take a few goes before you get past some of those buggers.