I often see people complaining that Rare never comes up with their own ideas and instead opt to create games that refine ideas already presented by Nintendo in their games; such as Banjo Kazooie "improving upon" Mario 64. But Blast Corps proves that Rare more than has enough potential to come up with and establish their own great game concepts.
Basically you have a half assed plot that is just there as an excuse for you to destroy buildings to clear a path for an automated nuclear missile carrier. Initially you'll be clearing paths with a Bulldozer like vehicle, which just requires you to ram into buildings. But soon you'll be forced to use a variety of weird vehicles and robots in order to clear a safe path with style.
These crazy vehicles are how and why Blast Corps shines with so much creativity. The vehicle Skyfall has an armored underside and a power booster, so its ideal method of destruction is to charge into a ditch or gully and launch into the air, landing on and smashing buildings below. Ballista is a biped that requires the player to collect missile boxes for ammo and launch them with dual cannons to cause destruction. J-bomb is a flying humanoid robot that can fly and hover in mid-air, and charge downwards at any time to stomp on objects below.
In addition to the creative aspects of the vehicles, the game itself is creative in its presentation and menu layouts, and exudes a sort of childish theme that doesn't take itself seriously despite the danger of the missions. The level selection itself is literally presented on a spinning globe as the levels take place all over the world, and even the moon and other planets later in the game. A sense of progression is easy to achieve when you can see the location of every main and bonus level.
The other key element to this game is in how much it pushes the player to achieve perfection in their playstyle. In addition to the main missile carrier levels, their are several timed bonus challenges that require becoming acquainted closely with the intricacies of the various vehicles. And anyone who has played this game to (or near) completion knows of the notorious platinum medals, which require insanely fast completion times and mastery of the vehicles. Unfortunately, while many players will enjoy this very difficult challenge of their abilities, others will find it absurd they should have to practice so much and have to achieve near perfection to get a single medal in a bonus round. Sometimes you can't please everyone....
45 comments:
I so remember playing this not having a clue as to what was going on but I had fun playing it.
Man, I really need another nintendo bad.
That is just the dichotomy of gamers, though. Some enjoy working their butts off to get ridiculously good, and others just want to play mario party. :P
Diddy kong racing was the best from rare in my opinion :P
I remember this game! God I was awful at it.
Soooo gooood!
Strange game this one
I rented this game for my 8th birthday.
looks like a cool game
I honestly remember this game and did not like it, opting more for Rare's FPS GE and PD or free-roaming with conker and the like.
havent played it :<
I have now decided to go dig out my nintendo. I do this about once a year, I think its about that time.
Will check out that game.
hahahahha Blast Corps <3
whoa great game i loved it! only thing that freaked me out was the time limit on every level :/
I love these old games =)
Never seen that although I had a N64, gotta check it out, looks cool.
Thanks, that game looks really cool.
I never liked this game, dunno why...
i never got to play many games, when i was about 4 or so, i remember i was playing duke nukem, snowboard party and yoshi's adventure i think it was, not sure if i missed out on all the action or not.
Oh man, I wish they'd release this on the Wii Virtual Console. I want to play it so bad right now.
Game looks really cool
God I loved this game. Goldeneye is still the best Rare game IMHO.
Must check it out, played alot of games but did not this one.
Never did played this, i remember everyone being really hyped for it though.
awww shit I remember this game.
It was so fun.
Hahaha I remember this, brings back some memories.
OMG I so remember this from wayyyyy back!
never played this game, but after reading that I might have to check it out
I've spent many hours playing as Banjo the Bear
If I remember right Rare may Rocket the Robot too =)
never played this before, but looks pretty fun
The video game community will never get over that most games are the same recycled stuff all over again. Rare did a pretty good job showing that.
I LOVED Banjo Kazooie! This looks cool, too! Following
Haha nostalgia Blast Corps, I played this game alot when it was new and it is still awesome!
Wow, I remember playing this game quite a few years ago. I was one of the few of my group who liked it (dunno why they didn't, bloody great game)
Great article. Couldn't agree more. For such a plain, no-filler game, it still seemed to fulfill a craving for a fun, addictive and worthwhile game.
shit, the only n64 games i ever played were the mario ones, goldeneye, and zelda.. i feel like i really missed out..
I've never played this before, I guess I'll try now. Looks like old school we all love.
OH MY GOD YES
Looks like a good game, haven't tried it out yet though.
should check it out, nice blog, i think i'll follow it
nostalgia, *gets N64* o-o
I always saw this game at the rental place, but never bothered to give it a try. Now I wish I did :(
I have this game! Picked it up for 2 dollars when a video rental place went out of business, good fun!
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