What is it?

Explosive Jake is a top-down, maze-based, arcade-style game by Pigeon Dev. Trapped in the deepest depths of a castle’s dungeons, Jake must use bombs to destroy crates in order to find the exit and its key, respectively. Enemies will glide around the grid of each map, and must be dodged or destroyed, as they will kill Jake in one hit.

Platform(s)

Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PC, PS Vita

Pros

Cons

Plays a bit like Bomberman.

Each level has its own theme.

Captures the feel of old arcade games quite well.

Infinite lives.

Sluggish movement.

Can only place one bomb at a time, annoying delay before you can do it again.

Finding the key and exit becomes incredibly repetitive and dull very quickly.

Restart button mapped to controller, accidentally pressing it will instantly reset it.

Can’t play it in handheld with JoyCons docked.

Verdict:

Explosive Jake fizzles and barely flashes, no thanks to its underwhelming gameplay that fails to justify why slowly fumbling through 40 levels of blowing up crates to look for an exit would be a fun experience.