Awakening shipwrecked just after a meteor collides with a remote biotech research island, you begin to discover an uncontrollable madness unleashed in the meteor's wake. As one secret uncovers another, you piece together a horrifying revelation that could lead to the end of life on Earth.
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This game is a steaming pile but it does have its charms. Dogs Bower is an extremely funny name for a protagonist.
I think Blue Stinger has a lot of cool ideas and is a solid survival horror especially on the Dreamcast.
It can be decently funny which I sometimes wonder is intentional. The story was kind of all over the place and weird but I still thought the setting was pretty interesting despite a ton of mistranslated dialog and set pieces. I'm also a big fan of some of the boss fights and environments.
Game has a ton of weapons, several I didn't even get to to try so i'd say it'd be fun to replay. However, the general clunkiness overall makes it something I don't see myself returning to, but I'm still glad I checked it out and enjoyed my time.
It can be decently funny which I sometimes wonder is intentional. The story was kind of all over the place and weird but I still thought the setting was pretty interesting despite a ton of mistranslated dialog and set pieces. I'm also a big fan of some of the boss fights and environments.
Game has a ton of weapons, several I didn't even get to to try so i'd say it'd be fun to replay. However, the general clunkiness overall makes it something I don't see myself returning to, but I'm still glad I checked it out and enjoyed my time.
This is a game some other friends of mine have told me is awful and not worth even looking at for ages, but a few weeks back a bunch of people on the Slack chat were talking about how much campy fun it was, and we all decided to play or replay through it over the course of the month~. I'm not much one for survival horror games, but for the 300 yen price of entry, I was willing to give Blue Stinger a shot even if it was something I ended up hating, particularly with what I'd heard about the Japanese version's different camera. It took me about 9.5 hours to beat the Japanese version of the game on normal difficulty on normal hardware.
Released in 1999, Blue Stinger takes place in the faaaar future of 2018. In 2000, a big earthquake on the Yucatan Peninsula causes a ton of it to sink into the ocean, and a new island to appear on top of it. This is believed to be the meteor that killed the dinosaurs, so it's called Dinosaur Island. Elliot, our main character is boating nearby when a weird meteor strikes the island and traps it in a big weird dome. He's attacked by strange monsters that are unleashed from the island, but manages to survive and wash up onto the island. He's found by the foul-mouthed Dogs (that's his name), and the two of them team up to try and find out what's wrong with the island along with radio assistance from a sniper on the island, Janine.
The story is a giant campy romp through a pastiche of action sci-fi movies. Having played the Japanese version and seen just how quick and weirdly overly detailed the subtitles are (this game has no Japanese dub, only subtitles, despite being a Japan-developed game), I'd also argue it's specifically an homage to poorly localized American action movies, and that's an element lost in translation to the English versions of the game. Another very fun thing about the game is that the VA is actually quite competently done for 1999, and even better that it's done by a bunch of the same VA folks who provided (or would provide) voices for Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, as Elliot has Sonic's VA, Dogs has Robotnik's (and sounds a LOT like him too), and Janine has Rouge's (and her voice is exactly the same). I got tons of big belly laughs out of just what a pig-headed buffoon Elliot is and what a wise-cracking jerk Dogs can be to him in response. They have great chemistry, and the slightly awkward English they speak only adds to that charm. For someone with a lot of nostalgia for Sonic Adventure 2 like me, the camp value is kinda incalculable, but even for someone unfamiliar with that, there's a ton to laugh at in Blue Stinger.
Now I know I opened the review by mentioning that Blue Stinger is a survival horror game, but that's a bit of a fib on my part. The truth is that Blue Stinger is really just an action game with a fixed camera like Resident Evil or Silent Hill uses, at least in the Japanese version. The English versions of the game lock the camera behind your shoulder to help with combat, but I think that also in turn makes puzzle solving a bit more difficult since the camera is now no longer guiding you towards important objects. The combat is ultimately so easy that I don't think it really needed "fixing" like that, and I'd argue the Japanese version of the game is simply the better one, but I think it's not a point super worth debating.
The gameplay itself is very survival horror like but with the quality of life features of an action game. You have clunky combat and movement, but also respawning enemies who drop money (only the enemies who drop money respawn) and infinite items you can buy. You could theoretically just grind near the start of the game for untold hours and get all the max health upgrades and items right then. It'd take you a SUPER long time, but you could do it. I found it decent fun to play. It has the same sort of awkward jankyness that all those old fixed camera horror games have (although this is a new level of awkward, as you don't actually have true tank controls and can rarely get screwed by the camera sorta getting you stuck), but the writing really carried the experience for me.
The presentation is pretty impressive for 1999. Character models look quite uncanny by today's standards, but it adds to the campy charm for me. The music is pretty unvaried and not terribly impressive, but the monster designs are cool and disturbing (sometimes surprisingly so) and the environments look nice too.
Verdict: Recommended. This is going to be a game a lot of people bounce off of, but if what I've described here sounds appealing, I think the game is well worth checking out. It's a game pretty easily picked up for cheap, so it shouldn't set you back terribly even if you end up not liking it. Who knows? It just might end up being one of your favorite Dreamcast games like it was for me~ (granted I have played very few XD).
"The only reason I didn't give it a 5 are the camera controls (or lack there of), and the swimming" was my old review, now I don't care, it is a 5/5 game.
Este juego ha acabado con mi cordura. La cámara es un caos, la diferencia entre enemigos es un caos, la música, pese a ser buena, te taladra la cabeza a tal volumen que los diálogos se quedan relegados a un segundo plano. Sus ideas son originales e intenta implementar veinte mil mecánicas que se quedan todas a medio fuelle. No suelo dejar juegos sin acabar pero este ha podido conmigo. Sigo sin entender qué demonios pasa, solo sé que el protagonista quiere mojar el churro desesperadamente. Antes que esto probad Illbleed que, por lo menos, merece la pena.
After watching TransWitchSammy play Illbleed at the behest of myself and Appreciations, I knew Blue Stinger was the next game she ought to play in order to fully appreciate Crazy Games and Shinya Nishigaki's mad genius. However, I'd previously committed to playing the game myself and had intended to do so in December, coinciding with when the game takes place, and it was quickly settled that I would play and stream it instead.
I'd like Sammy to know I took a bullet for her and I hope she never forgets the sacrifice I made.
DINOSAUR ISLAND TRAVEL LOG
Day 1:
For a Sega Dreamcast launch title and a first outing by Nishigaki's Climax Graphics (rebranded to Crazy Games two years later), Blue Stinger leads with its best foot forward.
Elliot Ballade is sailing around Dinosaur Island with his friend, who is so busy occupying himself with fitting a PVC figurine into a jar that he gets caught in a time dilation bubble. Elliot is saved a short time later by Dogs Bower, and now might be a good time to mention Masaki Segawa of Basilisk fame did all the character designs for Blue Stinger. Not to disparage his future work, but he's really never designed someone quite like Dogs since.
The story takes itself a little more seriously than Illbleed, with Nishigaki preferring to skew more towards a tone similar to that of Jurassic park, carefully balancing action and suspense while sprinkling in bits of his humor. People are mutating into horrible amalgamations of mammal and reptile, and though you have an arsenal of traditional and high-tech weapons, you can also like, put on a sumo shirt and come at them like the gassed up middle-aged, denim shorts wearing freak of nature Dogs is-- and all while thunderous music by composer Toshihiko Sahashi (who later worked on Gundam Seed) blares at a level that's just a bit too high in the mix to be able to hear your friends talk over Discord even with the game dropped to 20% volume.
In other words: this is a crazy game by Crazy Games. Or it is for now....
Day 2:
It doesn't take long to reach the Hello Market section of the game, which is littered with tons of great examples of video game signage, including so much marketing for Hassy Recovery Cola that you might be forgiven thinking it's a real product you can put your real lips to. However, Hello Market also exposes an especially frustrating aspect of Blue Stinger's design that plagues it through the duration of the game: it's "gero camera," the Japanese onomatopoeia for vomiting, which Nishigaki unaffectionately refers to it as in in an interview with Game Developer's John Andersen.
The camera tightly follows the player-character, and is at times so closely zoomed in that your visability when entering a room is limited to the back of your character's head. This was the result of an edict by Activision, which felt this sort of camera system would play better in Western markets as opposed to the more zoomed out position it takes in the Japanese version, because why on Earth would you want your game to be readable?
Unfortunately, I don't speak Japanese and I want to hear Deem Bristow go "GAH'CHA!" so I was forced to constantly eat shit when entering into rooms because Blue Stinger's enemy placement is practically the template Signalis followed, only with greater and more devious intent. It's fine, I spent all my money on large cans of Hassy. Dogs is leaving Dinosaur Island with his life and the price is only a few thousand dollars in soft drinks and completely calcified kidneys.
Day 3:
I'm starting to get a little frustrated.
Elliot is equipped with a shotgun and Dogs has a god damn gatling gun, and both these weapons do shit damage. What the hell, man? How do you make a video game gatling gun feel bad. How do you make a video game gatling gun wielded by reigning sumo champ Dogs Bower feel bad.
The whole weapon economy is fucked. Your arsenal is largely purchased from vending machines, necessitating a certain amount of grinding to afford new armaments. But when certain guns feel weak despite their cache in gaming culture, blowing 8,000 bucks on a laser sword or bazooka carries a risk that the weapon might be a total waste of money. Do you want to horde your cash and trade it in for ammo, cheeseburgers, and hot dogs? Or do you want to see what's in the mystery box?
By this point, the wildly variable audio mixing was actively causing problems with hearing my friends and being able to absorb needed context for where to go and what to do. Sammy became my Otacon, using a guide to keep me grounded and focused on the task at hand, only we discovered so deep into the walkthrough that the author was littering it with half-truths and totally glossing over important pieces of information, as if they too were a bit fed up with Blue Stinger. If IAmYoFatha was on the job, this wouldn't have happened, but he's either dead or in jail.
Day 4:
Elliot swallowed monsters.
Day 5:
Ok, man, let me tell you about burger-frames.
The final boss comes after a three minute and 45 second long defense mini-game with no save inbetween, meaning at minimum you're doing that over again if you die. Or worse, you'll have to do that plus a run back down and up a tower to restock on bazooka ammo if you didn't have the foresight to overstock your supply beforehand, because it's about the only thing that does a reliable amount of damage.
Despite having predictable patterns and attacks that can be led, the final boss feels like a bunch of random bullshit. His fire breath frequently hits outside of the effect and sometimes does not actually harm you when standing directly in the middle of it. I cannot stress enough how wildly incongruous the hitbox is with the animation itself. It also deals an insane amount of damage, killing Elliot in two hits if you didn't upgrade his health (something I didn't know was even possible until after I beat the game) and Dogs in three.
This is where cheeseburgers come in. Of all the consumable items in the game, cheeseburgers have the longest period of invulnerability from the time you eat them to the time your health is recovered, meaning you could bypass potential damage by eating a cheeseburger at the right frame of the boss's attack. At worst, you'll get a little cooked but still heal, rubbing your tummy while your head is engulfed in flames. This was the only way I was able to keep myself alive and beat the boss.
By this point, I was already at my wits end with Blue Stinger, frequently flipping the high-speed toggle in Redream and going "VROOOOM" while throwing sumo chops at a million miles an hour just to keep myself awake and invested in what was happening. Towards the end of the final night, I was making plans to buy a Japanese copy of the game and frame it.
"Oh, you must like this game a lot, huh?" some unsuspecting guest might say.
"Fucking no I do not!"
___________________________________________________
Blue Stinger is brimming with charm, humor, and that signature Nishigaki style. It's also obtuse, frustrating, and ill-conceived. It has Dogs Bower and Hassy, and it also has the worst gatling gun in video games and a "vomit camera." It's Crazy Games - or rather Climax Graphics - at its most nascent but not at its most pure.
Stand for the national anthem.
I'd like Sammy to know I took a bullet for her and I hope she never forgets the sacrifice I made.
DINOSAUR ISLAND TRAVEL LOG
Day 1:
For a Sega Dreamcast launch title and a first outing by Nishigaki's Climax Graphics (rebranded to Crazy Games two years later), Blue Stinger leads with its best foot forward.
Elliot Ballade is sailing around Dinosaur Island with his friend, who is so busy occupying himself with fitting a PVC figurine into a jar that he gets caught in a time dilation bubble. Elliot is saved a short time later by Dogs Bower, and now might be a good time to mention Masaki Segawa of Basilisk fame did all the character designs for Blue Stinger. Not to disparage his future work, but he's really never designed someone quite like Dogs since.
The story takes itself a little more seriously than Illbleed, with Nishigaki preferring to skew more towards a tone similar to that of Jurassic park, carefully balancing action and suspense while sprinkling in bits of his humor. People are mutating into horrible amalgamations of mammal and reptile, and though you have an arsenal of traditional and high-tech weapons, you can also like, put on a sumo shirt and come at them like the gassed up middle-aged, denim shorts wearing freak of nature Dogs is-- and all while thunderous music by composer Toshihiko Sahashi (who later worked on Gundam Seed) blares at a level that's just a bit too high in the mix to be able to hear your friends talk over Discord even with the game dropped to 20% volume.
In other words: this is a crazy game by Crazy Games. Or it is for now....
Day 2:
It doesn't take long to reach the Hello Market section of the game, which is littered with tons of great examples of video game signage, including so much marketing for Hassy Recovery Cola that you might be forgiven thinking it's a real product you can put your real lips to. However, Hello Market also exposes an especially frustrating aspect of Blue Stinger's design that plagues it through the duration of the game: it's "gero camera," the Japanese onomatopoeia for vomiting, which Nishigaki unaffectionately refers to it as in in an interview with Game Developer's John Andersen.
The camera tightly follows the player-character, and is at times so closely zoomed in that your visability when entering a room is limited to the back of your character's head. This was the result of an edict by Activision, which felt this sort of camera system would play better in Western markets as opposed to the more zoomed out position it takes in the Japanese version, because why on Earth would you want your game to be readable?
Unfortunately, I don't speak Japanese and I want to hear Deem Bristow go "GAH'CHA!" so I was forced to constantly eat shit when entering into rooms because Blue Stinger's enemy placement is practically the template Signalis followed, only with greater and more devious intent. It's fine, I spent all my money on large cans of Hassy. Dogs is leaving Dinosaur Island with his life and the price is only a few thousand dollars in soft drinks and completely calcified kidneys.
Day 3:
I'm starting to get a little frustrated.
Elliot is equipped with a shotgun and Dogs has a god damn gatling gun, and both these weapons do shit damage. What the hell, man? How do you make a video game gatling gun feel bad. How do you make a video game gatling gun wielded by reigning sumo champ Dogs Bower feel bad.
The whole weapon economy is fucked. Your arsenal is largely purchased from vending machines, necessitating a certain amount of grinding to afford new armaments. But when certain guns feel weak despite their cache in gaming culture, blowing 8,000 bucks on a laser sword or bazooka carries a risk that the weapon might be a total waste of money. Do you want to horde your cash and trade it in for ammo, cheeseburgers, and hot dogs? Or do you want to see what's in the mystery box?
By this point, the wildly variable audio mixing was actively causing problems with hearing my friends and being able to absorb needed context for where to go and what to do. Sammy became my Otacon, using a guide to keep me grounded and focused on the task at hand, only we discovered so deep into the walkthrough that the author was littering it with half-truths and totally glossing over important pieces of information, as if they too were a bit fed up with Blue Stinger. If IAmYoFatha was on the job, this wouldn't have happened, but he's either dead or in jail.
Day 4:
Elliot swallowed monsters.
Day 5:
Ok, man, let me tell you about burger-frames.
The final boss comes after a three minute and 45 second long defense mini-game with no save inbetween, meaning at minimum you're doing that over again if you die. Or worse, you'll have to do that plus a run back down and up a tower to restock on bazooka ammo if you didn't have the foresight to overstock your supply beforehand, because it's about the only thing that does a reliable amount of damage.
Despite having predictable patterns and attacks that can be led, the final boss feels like a bunch of random bullshit. His fire breath frequently hits outside of the effect and sometimes does not actually harm you when standing directly in the middle of it. I cannot stress enough how wildly incongruous the hitbox is with the animation itself. It also deals an insane amount of damage, killing Elliot in two hits if you didn't upgrade his health (something I didn't know was even possible until after I beat the game) and Dogs in three.
This is where cheeseburgers come in. Of all the consumable items in the game, cheeseburgers have the longest period of invulnerability from the time you eat them to the time your health is recovered, meaning you could bypass potential damage by eating a cheeseburger at the right frame of the boss's attack. At worst, you'll get a little cooked but still heal, rubbing your tummy while your head is engulfed in flames. This was the only way I was able to keep myself alive and beat the boss.
By this point, I was already at my wits end with Blue Stinger, frequently flipping the high-speed toggle in Redream and going "VROOOOM" while throwing sumo chops at a million miles an hour just to keep myself awake and invested in what was happening. Towards the end of the final night, I was making plans to buy a Japanese copy of the game and frame it.
"Oh, you must like this game a lot, huh?" some unsuspecting guest might say.
"Fucking no I do not!"
___________________________________________________
Blue Stinger is brimming with charm, humor, and that signature Nishigaki style. It's also obtuse, frustrating, and ill-conceived. It has Dogs Bower and Hassy, and it also has the worst gatling gun in video games and a "vomit camera." It's Crazy Games - or rather Climax Graphics - at its most nascent but not at its most pure.
Stand for the national anthem.