We store cookies, you can get more info from our privacy policy.
GC

Was Bomberman for GameCube shown at E3?

by Jonathan Metts - August 6, 2001, 10:14 pm EDT
Source: GC-Inside, sorta.

We know it sounds crazy, but hear us out. There's a chance that gameplay footage of Bomberman Generations got mixed in with some GBA video back at E3 2001!

Today a popular Japanese site called GC-Inside posted a short preview for Bomberman Generations, which has been spotted on Space World software lists as a GameCube title.

What caught our eye was the pair of screenshots that GC-Inside posted with the preview. They are vid-caps from some footage that several of us distinctly remember seeing back at E3 in May. What's bizarre is that this particular footage was part of of a long reel playing on a giant-sized Game Boy Advance display. This huge GBA screen was the only place to view Metroid IV, among other things.

The Bomberman footage showed the famous hero strolling through a little forest. In the upper-left corner was a logo: "Bomberman G". You can see a line of what might by tiny text next to the "G" if you look closely at GC-Inside's screenshots...unfortunately, we don't have that footage available right now, and we're not sure if that stuff said "enerations" or anything else. The scene was viewed from an isometric/overhead angle, and everything had a very rounded, pre-rendered-ish look to it. At the time, we thought it looked kind of out of place and unusual, but not necessarily suspicious. The pretty graphics could have been good use of pre-rendered sprite modeling, a la Donkey Kong Country. We also weren't very familiar with Bomberman Story (Tournament in the U.S.), and thought this odd footage was probably just taken from it.

Now GC-Inside's article present an interesting possibility: was this E3 video actually taken from Bomberman Generations for GameCube? To be fair, it's not graphically out of the question, if Hudson is going for the Animal Forest look. What looked like pre-rendered sprites could have been very high-polygon 3D models. On top of that, it is feasible that some random GameCube footage accidentally got mixed in with the GBA video reel...stranger goof-ups have happened at E3.

Still, we have another theory that might make more sense. What if Bomberman Generations is headed to both GBA and GameCube? That would explain the E3 footage found on the gigantic GBA display and the game's being listed for GameCube at Space World. Moreover, this could very well have something to do with the GC-GBA interaction, which Nintendo has repeatedly promised to show off at Space World.

Right now we're not sure what to think, but hopefully something will be cleared up at Space World or before. The E3 footage in question should be included in PGC's E3 video, and in the mean-time, we'll try to contact Nintendo about the issue.

Got a news tip? Send it in!
Advertisement
Advertisement