BlowOut

Written by John Scalzo  on December 12, 2003

Full Review: Another famous Dutch once said "If it bleeds, we can kill it."

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One of the common complaints against video games nowadays is their similarity to one another. The different game types are so set in their ways that many games appear to just take a genre outline, like First Person Shooter, and then proceed to swap in a few new characters and a few different weapons and call it a new game. But for all intension purposes, it's a cookie cutter game. Except the developers used a Santa cutout instead of a tree. So when a company makes a game that doesn't conform to a standard genre, everyone stand up to take notice.

BlowOut is a game that doesn't conform to a standard genre. On the other hand, the story has a tough marine named John "Dutch" Cane being sent to a transport ship called the Honour Guard because it's been overrun for insect-like aliens. It doesn't really get any more standard than that in a side scrolling shooter. But BlowOut is more than a side scrolling shooter. It's not the normal go from point A to point B while shooting everything in your path type of shooter. The level design of BlowOut is set up more like Doom in that you have to search the section of the ship you're in to find keys and flip switches that will open doors. The game also uses the first person shooter weapon system of picking up a gun once and then just looking for more ammo. When you step back and think about it, it's a really interesting idea.

But when you step up to the controller, it's another story. The controls in BlowOut are just horrible. Moving is controlled by the left stick. But the left stick also controls the crosshair target that you have to use to aim at the insects. A secondary option allows you to put the aiming on the right stick, but that doesn't fare much better. It's just too difficult to aim and shoot and move all at the same time. On top of that, the rest of the controls are just weird. There is no jumping, but Dutch was given a jet pack that is controlled with L1. Shooting your weapon is accomplished with R1. It's not an inherently bad system, but it takes a lot more effort to learn the system than there should be in a side scrolling shooter.

The game features ten levels and even with the magic double digit number, it doesn't matter, all the levels are the same. Colored key fetch quests, flip some switches, lots of backtracking, fight the boss. That's it. And with all that similarity in the missions it's no wonder the game's graphics make everything look the same. The bugs have some decent designs, but the levels themselves, the corridors, the walls, the elevators, the debris, it's all the same. I realize Dutch never leaves the ship and everything should look similar, but it looks exactly the same.

Then the graphics start working against you by making things disappear into the background. defense drones constantly disappear into the background and only appear again when they shock you. You also can't see the bullets the drones shoot at you. Only after you've been hit do you know. Your own shotgun only makes a spark when you fire. You just have to hope it hits it's target. And in most games that sparking fuse box or protruding pipe is just ambiance. In this game it just shot ten invisible bullets at you. It's like kids playing cops and robbers: I shot you! No you didn't! yes I did! And then there's the way the screen focuses tight on Cane and stuff that was hard to see before is now off the screen and shooting at you.

All these graphical problems are a shame because the sound really works. The voice acting between Dutch, his radio man Red and the Ship's Voice are all great. Then there's some decent effects with great gunfire, good explosions, creepy alien screams, and other squishy noises that a game like this demands. I like it.

But really, the game is just too damn easy to be interesting. Maybe I'm a shooter snob but there are enough medkits and ammo packs strewn around these levels to make the game a cake walk. The bad play control is the only thing that makes BlowOut even kinda hard and once you get used to them, that goes away. Once you finally get the controls down the game is better, there are fleeting moments of Contra-like fun, but it's still not good. And by then you're already bored with the game anyway.