Blast Works: Build, Trade, Destroy

Developer: BudCat Creations
Publisher: Majesco
Release Date: June 10, 2008
System: Wii
ESRB Rating: E
Official Web site

In a nutshell: KatamaR-Type? Gradius Damacy?

0:00 I played a demo of this game for about five minutes at last year's E3. It was by far the most original game I played at the entire show.

0:01 A bass-heavy techno beat plays over a simple title screen, with labeled pieces of a cel-shaded plane marking the different options.

0:02 The controls configuration screen shows a total of three buttons: Shoot, Hide Attached Shapes and Pause. Now that's old-school.

0:03 Let's jump on in to the official-sounding Campaign mode. The difficulties are Rookie, Pilot and Ace. Since I'll be flying a ship, I feel like I should at least be a Pilot.

0:04 I know from my experience with the demo that shooting down the opposing ships lets me collect their falling carcasses and attach them to a growing ball around my ship, Katamari-style. It's a good thing I know this, because the game doesn't explain it anywhere that I've seen.

0:05 Right off the bat, I'm finding it hard to tell which enemies are dead, and thus OK to absorb, and which ones are alive, and thus not OK to touch. Some better color-coding or something would help.

0:06 I've already lost all three of my lives. The enemy shots seem to be magnetically attracted to the center of my ship.

Read the full review at Crispy Gamer