Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: BlowOut

Written by John Scalzo on October 22, 2003

Final Glimpse: BlowOut? Blow it up!

Last year's Contra: Shattered Soldier was an amazing game and a great way to return the side scrolling shooter to consoles. It didn't start a renaissance for shooters (like Ikaruga is doing for space shooters). And it was really only popular with the hard core Contra nuts like myself. You know who you are, you proudly walk around in your The Code shirt from GameSkins and secretly (or publicly) curse Appaloosa for screwing over the series on the PSone. But it appears that Contra: Shattered Soldier may have inspired something good: Majesco's new shooter entitled BlowOut.

BlowOut features the standard story. You are John "Dutch" Cane, a member of a "military fighting unit" so secret that it doesn't have a name (*cough* Contra team *cough*). Insect-like aliens have invaded the space station that Dutch has been assigned to. What's a badass commando type supposed to do as your friends are being torn limb from limb? That's right, pick up a flamethrower and get to work. That's it. No more story. No cut scenes. No voice actors. No motion capture. Just balls to the wall 2D side scrolling goodness. At least that's what Majesco promises.

Dutch will have his work cut out for him as he blasts his way through ten levels and fourteen different types of enemies, all designed by Yasushi Nirasawa. Nirasawa is the driving force behind the character design in Soul Calibur and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within among other things. While the enemies have really only been revealed in the concept art stage, they look appropriately gross.

But Dutch does not have to go through these fourteen types of enemies alone. He'll have nine different weapons at his disposal. They are in no particular order: the standard machine gun, flamethrower, chainsaw, mini-gun, grenade launcher, shotgun, pulse rifle, homing missiles, and a nail gun. It's not known how the weapon switching will occur, but something tells me it won't be through shooting out blmps that fly overhead. In addition to the weapons, Dutch can also find Modifiers that will give him increased strength, speed, invulnerability, and invisibility. BlowOut also treads a bit on Red Faction's territory by placing these Modifiers and other hidden secrets behind walls you have to blow up.

BlowOut also manages to go it's own way by including a very unique level editor feature. You won't just be able to edit levels outside of the game and play through them but you'll be able to edit levels on the fly as you're playing them. Say you think the game is too dark (and it is), pop a light bulb on the ceiling and let there be light. Don't like that wall, tear it down with a few button taps. I don't quite see the point of this, and any true fan of side scrolling shooters knows that cheating like that is wrong, but it should be interesting none the less.

While graphics in a game like this are kind of unimportant, Majesco is keeping much of the look of the game under lock and key. All I can really safely say is that the screenshots and movies look a lot like Contra: Shattered Soldier. A lot.