BonBon Paradise (PC)

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BonBon was made in 1997 by EMAG Soft for PC. It is one of the few games to support the PG-5 PcGun made by A4 Tech. I spoke about the gun in Light Gun Reviews episode 43. On the first glance BonBon looks like a Point Blank rip off. Especially the hamburger character looks like Dr. Don of Point Blank. However BonBon does a good job being an independent shooting gallery game. BonBon was distributed as two versions: Either as a cut down version called BonBon Lite, which came bundled with the second player gun PG-52nd, or as BonBon Paradise with all levels.

BonBon consists of 20 mini games. These can be freely selected in the so called training mode. Besides that the game features two main modes which provide the player a random set of levels. Beating one of these will reward the player with a cut scene. One of these modes is called Arcade. This mode has a fixed number of levels and shows the player exactly which levels are going to be played and in which order. Contrary to the statement in the manual the Arcade Mode can be played as single player. The other mode is called Travel mode. This mode is more of a board game. The player may choose a path from a start point to an end location and therefore controls the number of to be played levels. Much like A.D cop the game can be played in a two player mode by local multiplayer or network play. Speaking of A.D cop: Two of BonBon's mini games feature characters form A.D cop.

Personally I don't like the game. The Music and the graphics are good and the precision of the gun is fine. However some of the mini games are very difficult such as the tube puzzle and the French cards memorization games. Furthermore it is strange that BonBon, which is targeted towards children, assumes that they knew the rules of Poker back in 1997 to play one of the mini games. These mini games will drain the continues of incapable players drastically. In my opinion BonBon puts to less emphasis on light gun mechanics and I found some of the mini games frustrating. The fact that many difficult non-light gun heavy games are spliced into the to be completed set of levels, annoyed me. It makes beating the game unnecessary hard.

The retail box allows the customer to see the CD ROM. On the back every mini game is shown and briefly explained.