Review: Blast Works: Build, Fuse & Destroy

Back when I was a kid, in the eighties, I used to love those old side scrolling shooters that you'd find in your local arcade, my favourite at the time was the original Gradius. Its power up system was something new at the time, blasting enemies to increase your fire-power.

Sometimes I get nostalgic for those simpler times, sometimes the complexity of some of today's games just turns me off and I want to play something which doesn't require half a dozen buttons and two control sticks, and for me to split my attention between action, maps, radars and god knows what else. So it was a very pleasant surprise when Blastworks fell through my letterbox.

Old Skool

At its very core Blastworks has so much in common with its predecessors, shoot or avoid everything that comes at you, take down a boss with a particular weak point, then repeat, something we've all seen before. Something Blastworks does a bit differently though is the way you build up your firepower, there are no power ups to pick up in this game, instead you can attach your shot down enemies to your ship. This actually is a lot better than it sounds, appearance wise you end up with some right ramshackle results, but all the broken down ships making it up still have their original armaments. So, whilst your ship might look like a flying jumble sale, it can do some serious damage, and as long as your actual ship doesn't get hit you can build it up bigger than you could imagine.

Of course, when you build your ship big enough to fill the whole screen, and you will, it makes it hard to avoid all the bullets and enemies flying around the place, no problem though, rather than losing significant amounts of your collection of ships you can shrink everything down to your original ship with the press of a button. This especially comes in handy in the boss battles as whilst you may be able to build up something as big, and with as much firepower, as the games bosses, being comprised of already shot down ships it just isn't half as sturdy as the games easiest boss.

Hard as Nails

The game's bosses aren't the only the only things that are tough in this game though, you'll find plenty of enemies along the way, on their own they aren't too much of a threat, but they come at you at least a couple at a time, and in quick succession. And with a total of fifteen levels of ever increasing difficulty it really retains the frustratingly addictive feel of its retro ancestors, this might be a bit much for some people, but in that case you can always get a friend to help you. In fact you can get more than one friend to help you out as the game offers up to four player co-operative in all game modes.

Whilst there is no actual competitive multiplayer modes, there can be some competitiveness in the co-operative mode, shooting down a big enemy, and then having your mate steal it's carcass from you for themselves adds some rivalry to the game, especially as the amount of stuff you have stuck to your ship works like a score multiplier. So, with plenty of rock hard action for you, and some fun multiplayer this should take you a while to play through, if you can manage it it, it really is that tough, but that's not where it ends, you can always build your own levels with the games built in editor.

Endless Possibilities

I've seen lots of level editors in games before, but never anything as comprehensive as this, it's more than just a level editor, it's almost a complete game creator. Using basic shapes you can create almost anything, new ships, enemies, as well as levels, and it's not limited to the appearance of things, you can decide which direction the screen scrolls in, the movement of enemies, and their firing patterns. It's quite daunting at first getting to grips with the editor, and it will take a fair bit of trial and error to get the most out of it, but there are a few levels included on the disc to show you what is possible.

When you see these levels you'll realize that it is possible to recreate practically any scrolling shooter from the past, and so much more, and what's even better is you can share everything online. It is possible to send your friends your created content, but there is also an online library of user created content at your disposal, with thousands of items for you to download and play with. It's quite amazing what they've done, and it makes it literally a game with no end as long as there are people out there creating content, there is a downside though, the created content is quite memory intensive, so if you have a lot of downloaded content on your Wii you will need to juggle it on SD cards to get the most out of Blastworks.

Don't Overlook

For what you get on the disc Blastworks is a fantastic package, it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea, but if you like your scrolling shooters, or have an inclination towards game design then this really is a must have. Presentation on the game isn't the greatest, some of the games music is especially annoying, but if you're bothered by things like graphics and sound quality odds are it's not your type of game anyway. It would be a real shame if Blastworks doesn't get the recognition it deserves, but sadly it is likely to be the case, all I can do is urge you to go out and buy it, you really won't regret it.