Blast Corps (N64)
I rented Blast Corps last night and at the time of writing this (my first review) I have played it for about 4 hours. First of all, when you are done reading this, GO RENT THIS GAME NOW! Rare has once again made a superb game for Nintendo. The difference is that this time, no one expected it to be as good as it actually is (at least I didn't). As the other reviews say, this game takes you back to the old NES days. It's true! I haven't played a game this original for a while.
In each town you have to clear a path for the missile carrier. Arrows pointing to the buildings will show you which ones have to be destroyed. You will obviously want to knock these down first. Once the carrier is gone you can come back to destroy any buildings that are left and pick up the remaining RDU's. RDU's are little orange squares that are normally dark, but once you get close to them they flash and become lit. There are 100 of them in each level. They are usually found along the road or in big masses in parking lots, or sometimes out in the middle of a desert or in a mine. For every regular level there are two or three bonus levels.
The weird thing about the bonus levels is that there are not only destruction levels but racing levels. Actually, there are LOTS of racing levels. The neat thing about these levels is that if you throw in three more cars you would have R.C. Pro-Am 64! You also get to choose which vehicle you want to use on the racing levels. This is where you will want to use the hot rods and the police car. These levels are just part of the "training" or "bonus" levels. Another type of training levels includes levels where you just destroy stuff (no missile carrier). You can also pick your own vehicle on these. But probably the most important training levels are the vehicle levels. These help you get used to the control of each vehicle. You will be playing the Backlash level a lot!
Some of my favorite vehicles are the J-Bomb (big yellow robot) and the Ballista (motorcycle-type vehicle with a cannon on each side). I love flying over the buildings and then spinning around and smashing them, it's just so fun. Shooting them with missiles is also cool (Ballista). My least favorite is of course the Backlash, but I'm starting to get used to it. When I read the other reviews I though that ramming a building backwards meant holding B to go backwards. Wrong. You have to be going forward really fast and then spin around with the control stick while holding R to slide into the building. It's tougher than it sounds.
GRAPHICS - 4.4
The graphics in Blast Corps are the best I've seen yet on N64. Everything is polygons. That's right, EVERYTHING. No annoying sprite trees like in Mario. What's even better, the polygons don't look like polygons. They look realistic and smooth, not blocky. The explosions are also really cool, and come in every color there is. The thing I don't like is the little TV. in the corner. The people look too fuzzy.
SOUND - 3.7
The sound effects are all decent, but there is nothing ground-breaking. They don't really get on your nerves except for the "You're just trying to impress me!" at the end of the level. The music is good too. I like the music on Cooter Creek. There is just about every style of music and it isn't repeated too much, so everybody should be happy.
CONTROL - 4.1
The control for all of the vehicles is pretty good, except for the Backlash. But as Cap Scott says, it is another challenge.
FUN FACTOR - 4.6
Blast Corps is VERY fun, but it can be frustrating sometimes when you are trying over and over to get the gold commendation. I thought that Argent Towers was frustrating just because I couldn't handle the Backlash.
REPLAY VALUE - 2.5
This is what I score Blast Corps low in. If I had this game I would be playing it over and over until I got the platinum commendations, but after that there wouldn't be anything else left to do. It probably wouldn't be that fun to play the levels over again since you already know the solutions.
OVERALL - 4.2
I think that Blast Corps is a great game to rent, but buying it is another matter. I guess if you're a hardcore gamer that buys a lot of games and has plenty of money to spend on them it's different, but I have been buying a game every month since Christmas when I got N64 and Mario 64, and I need to save some money for games coming later this year. I want something I can play over and over, and that's the main reason I'm not buying Blast Corps.
