Game Review: Blast Works: Build, Trade, Destroy (Wii)

**fg-54** · August 25th, 2008, 22:18

Published by: Majesco
Developed by: Budcat Creations
Genre: shooter/sandbox
Players: 1-4
Price: $20
Platform: Wii
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Overview: "BlastWorks: Build, Trade, Destroy" is as unique as its name, it offers chaotic multiplayer while keeping single player fun enough to keep coming back even if you have no friends due to its limitless builder that allows you to create bullets, ships, enemies, environments, ect, the only limit here is your imagination!

Gameplay: Many things can be said about this game's gameplay, not only does it offer a refreshingly new way of playing a side-scrolling shooter, but it is also packed in with a marvelous creator that allows you to make anything you can imagine!

Lets start with the simpler side of this game, the campaign mode: you and a friend can engage a Difficult road of a disappointingly short amount of levels which offer a good challenge and some great fun in all three difficulty modes.

In campaign, even tho it is small, it doesn't fall short in its fun factor, specially if you have a friend beside you, as you shoot at your enemies, you will notice that you can actually grab them and make them part of your ship, this is good for tree reasons: one, they provide a temporary shield for you (they fall off when hit) two: they automatically shoot in the direction they were looking at when caught, in which case you may find yourself with ships that are shooting behind you which seems useless, or funny, ether way you look at it it never hurts to have an extra ship to take care of you. And three: after you have collected enough ships, you will receive a bonus life which can be the difference between clearing a level or not.

Grabbing ships is probably one of the funnest things to do in this game apart from making your own levels, there is a special joy that can be achieved once you see that your ship covers the entire screen, and death comes to all that challenge you.

You CAN at any time call back all of your minion ships by pressing the "Z" button on the nunchuck, this skill is specially useful when fighting bosses and you wish to keep your shield, then quickly popping them out for a small burst of random bullets to hopefully hit the boss's weak spot, or if your friend can't grab any enemies because your ship is all over the screen, you can be a good fellow and call them back until your friend has collected enough to satisfy his needs.

After you have beaten campaign mode, or if you just don't have anyone to play with, there is always "build" mode, here, you can build anything you want from backgrounds to bullets, you can literally customize anything you can think of! color size, speed, rate, you name it. but just don't expect to get there and have a master piece in five minutes, creating a good looking ship or a well rounded bullet can take up to thirty minutes or more, it all depends on how detailed you want it to be, I for example made a chicken in it's shell that throws up in about twenty minutes, this may be seen as an upside or a downside depending on which way you look at it, even tho there is nothing really wrong with the editor, it took me a whole day of patience before I could even start to build my own map and that was with only ONE enemy.

This builder has MANY things to offer, with a very well numbered amount of choices for each option, there are over 50 different colors to chose from, over 30 different bullet paths, sounds, ect, you get the idea, this is probably the best in-game builder to have ever been made in a game, it is so complete, it even offers customizable AI for the enemies, and you can surprisingly make it to where the enemies break apart as you shoot them instead of dying in once piece, this builder is so well made, the developers actually used it to make every level in the game.

This image does a poor job at illustrating the amount chaos that can be reached in this game.

Graphics: To say that this game's graphics are good or bad would be a mistake, it doesn't even have a set art style since you can make your own, want a Lego theme? you got it, how about a black and white look? you got it! a cartoony art style? with some darn hard work you got it!

How good the graphics are is really up to you and the hundreds of active users out there, and I am positive it will evolve as time goes on, here is the official blast works site where you can upload and download user created content, this can be done easily since the site will ask you for your wii code number (finally they are put to good use) this allows you to click "download" on any desired item and it will be downloaded straight into your wii, from here you can add even more detail to it. but if we were to take every single piece of content that has been made, then i would probably say that most of them DO have a set art style, and that for a $20 game the graphics aren't too bad, that is also taking in consideration that most of the content you will have on your maps will be made by you, or another user with little experience in 3D design.

Still, a bit more animation would have been appreciated, as well as the option to animate yourself, tho not all are knowledgeable over the fourth dimension which is actually twisting and turning and not a straight line from past to future as represented by us three dimensional creatures opening the possibilities for time travel, but that is another story for another time.

Each of this ships probably took about an hour to make, maybe longer.

Sound: this game has some catchy yet simple beats which get more complex as time goes on but never really gets too wild, it is there not to be heard, but to be appreciated every now and then.
You can edit sound effects of pretty much everything, bullets, explosions, ect but not background music, and it would have been nice to have had that option, i mean, who wouldn't want to play a Mario themed level with a Mario song? and with even a launch game (excite truck) offering this feature, I can't see why this game which is so built around the idea that you can customize anything would not have it.

Replay Value: Offering up to four player co-op, the ability to build, trade, AND destroy, how can this game NOT have a great replay value, most things are unlocked from the beginning so you don't have to work too much for the few extras which is a little disappointing because it would have been more exiting to have had to unlock more things, still, the replay value doesn't revolve around playing campaign mode, but letting your imagination come to life and letting everyone see it, there are hundreds of downloadable parts available online and hundreds more to come which will bombard your with excitement, so let your imagination run wild with the builder! and feel free to show the world.

Conclusion: What can YOU get for $20? A shirt? Some cheap shoes? A collector's edition $1 coin? How about Blast Works: Build, Trade, Destroy! this action packed shooter/sandbox game allows you make your dreams come true, and build your own game! not only that, but you can share it with your friends AND the whole world! This game also allows you and up to three of your friends to play in one of the levels YOU made, so they can complain about why the background is not pretty enough, or why a pig shoots bullets from its butt.

So to close this conclusion, Blast Works: Build, Trade, Destroy is a great choice if you are looking for a cheap wii game that will give you some good bang for your buck, or if you are just desperately looking for a good wii game because you are tiered of all the mini games you have played in the past two years,so whatever the reason is, Blast Works: Build, Trade, Destroy is a great choice for anyone out there with a wii.

Difficulty: Again, YOU make it, YOU choose how many enemies are on screen, and how powerful they are, YOU make the difficulty, and in my opinion, it can't get any more perfect then that.

Still, aside from that, you have three difficulty options: Rookie, Pilot, and Ace, they only affect how quickly you die as far as I can tell, or how many bullets it takes to kill each enemy, not how many of them are on screen so your maps will remain untouched.

Gameplay: 4.5/5
Graphics: 4.5/5
Sound: 4/5
Replay Value: 4/5
Difficulty: 5/5

Overall Score:

.:Great Game!:.