[ back ]
Blast Works: Build Trade Destroy for Wii
(by Caleb Rumley - September 24, 2008)
I’ve heard a few people complaining that the Wii doesn’t have enough new software out, it doesn’t have good third party games. Well, if you’re one of those people then you might want to think about picking up Blast Works.
Blast Works really innovates on the shoot em up genre. Nearly every enemy you shoot down can latch onto your ship, Katamari Damacy-style, and if you’re good enough, your tiny ship can become a hulking behemoth with tons of enemies latched on, shooting in every direction.
Honestly, the fact alone that enemy ships can roll onto your starter craft is unique enough. There are several well designed campaign levels that will keep you busy for a while. Even on the easiest difficulty setting, Blast Works is a challenge. By the fifth campaign, I was having trouble getting by with only a handful of extra lives.
But sometimes the game can be too difficult – and I played through every level on “Rookie”! Once the game started to get hard enough that I wanted to take a break, I began to explore the rest of the modes in Blast Works.
There is truly an infinite amount of things you can do with Blast Works. Majesco has included several editors which allow for completely customizable stages. The editors have pretty steep learning curves, but there’s really no limit to what you can make. I started building some basic shapes and soon I was able to build my own ships, enemies, and even complete levels.
Keep in mind it takes some serious time to build levels – several hours if you want to make something really good. Blast Works has serious tools for any would-be game designer. It allows you to make 3D shapes, alter enemy paths, and even lets you create shooting patterns for ships. The single player modes are great, but if you like customization, Blast Works really lets you do whatever you want to do.
So you can obviously Build and Destroy, but what about Trade? Majesco has an excellent online service that lets you download user creations and chat with other Blast Works players. Located at blastworksdepot.com, I registered and was able to download some incredible creations in about 10 minutes. Granted, it took a little longer than I would have liked, but once I started downloading custom levels and ships I was hooked.
Basically, you just create an account on the Web site, click “Download to Wii” on your computer, power up the Wii, and you’ve got new levels and extra gameplay. Some of the custom created levels rival the courses in the original game! It’s just amazing what people have made using the tools in Blast Works, and it’s great to see that Majesco has created a Web site where you can share and discuss your creations.
You know what makes Blast Works even better? The price has been knocked down to $20. You can play by yourself, run through levels in co-op with some buddies, or make and trade levels online. Blast Works is one of the best Wii games that no one seems to know about. It gets an 8.5 out of 10.
[ back ]
