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Blaster
.: By:
Corn Bread :: Device used:
iPAQ H3650
:: December 6, 2001 ::
Buy this game :.
Update:
Since the review was written (in fact,
virtually as soon as it was published!), the game has been updated, with the
player now given three lives instead of one. When your ship is destroyed, you
restart at the previous wave of enemy ships.
Due to this change, the score has been updated
from the original 6/10 to 7/10.
Original review:
Getting tired of playing and completing
Turjah 2 over and over again? Well, ready
your shooting skills because FogNog has
just released what could very well be the most challenging and difficult
shooting game there is. Enter
Blaster.
Blaster is a vertical shoot'em up very similar to
Turjah with your
goal being to obliterate every alien space craft you see, destroy their home
base, and rack up as many points as possible. To aid you in your mission, the
game has a vast variety of power-ups to augment your weapons, and these
power-ups really do make a difference in the game as they are very powerful
indeed. The power-ups are both a very cool feature of the game, but at the same
time disappointing.
The power-ups are cool because only in this
game have I seen such a vast array of different weapons, from the Disruptor
(which sends bolts of electricity to the nearest enemy, a very cool effect) to
the Defense Drones (which orbit your spacecraft and destroy all incoming
enemies), there are many more types of weapon available for your ship as you
progress in the game. The downside, however, is that these power-ups get used up
real fast.
You start out the game with only one life. Yes
folks, you heard that right - you only get to have one life to finish the four
levels in the game. The game is difficult enough as it is even on the “easy”
setting, but giving you only one life to finish the game is insane! I’m almost
positive that there is no one good enough to finish this game, but if you do
manage to finish this game, please post your high score on the
FogNog website as proof and
send me an
e-mail. I sure would like to meet the daredevil who actually managed to
finish this game!
The graphics in Blaster aren't
anything to write home about. The background and enemy ships look very generic
and have a very simplistic design, and the look and feel of this game is
comparable to old 8-bit NES titles such as Xevious and Salamander.
The subtle fade out animation of enemies exploding looks very cool, however, and
I liked the way the game would alert you of incoming power-ups. Whenever a
power-up appears, the word “Power Up” deftly scrolls across the screen and the
name of the power-up appears if you successfully retrieve it.
The animation in
Blaster is actually very good;
the screen scrolls smoothly and the different types of enemies have different
movement speeds which remain consistent throughout the game. I did, however,
experience a few slowdowns while playing when the screen gets filled up with
enemies and my ship is taking a heavy battering, but these slowdowns only last
for a short time and happen very infrequently.
The sounds effect are good as the various
weapon sounds and explosions are conveyed quite nicely, whilst the music sounds
good. There is only one track of music available, though, so you’ll be hearing
the same music over and over again throughout all the stages. It’s a good thing
there is an in-game mute command to shut off the redundant music.
Since the initial release of
Blaster is for the
iPAQ H36xx series running Pocket PC 2000 only (a version for Pocket PC 2002
devices will follow soon), the movement of your ship is defaulted to your
stylus, while pressing the action button on the directional pad acts as the
shoot key. The other hardware buttons are used to launch specialized attacks. I
have always loathed playing shoot ‘em up games on my
iPAQ (I prefer the
Casio
PPC’s for action games) since the stylus is not the most efficient way to
manoeuvre your ship, but Blaster's
stylus control method seems to work very well. Manoeuvring the ship with my
stylus was a very pleasant experience since the ship responded accurately to my
stylus taps/dragging, and the stylus control in
Blaster is certainly much
smoother than in the previous shooting games that I have played. If it wasn’t
for the insane level of difficulty, I would have enjoyed this game tremendously.
This game is definitely for the die-hard
shooter fans only as its high level of difficulty is enough to frustrate even
the most seasoned player. If only the difficulty level was to be toned down a
little bit and you had more than just one life,
Blaster would have been a
blast to play but unfortunately, as it was, I was more irritated than
entertained. Blaster is
currently available for the
iPAQ H36xx series only, and can be installed in either main RAM or on a
storage card (the game takes up 3 MB of storage memory). It is sold for $14.95.
Pros:
Cons:
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