The first of Rare's illustrious N64 career is... not the sort of game I would've expected. Not bad by any means, though. A very high-concept vehicular puzzler where the name of the game is usually to destroy everything. Sometimes, to race, too. But mostly destruction.
Let's get the main criticism out of the way - I hate the Backlash. I never felt confident using it. Like I know it's drifting, the trick to using it effectively is drifting, but the hitbox is so far back on the body that you have to overextend even beyond the amount you normally would for drifting. Even by the end, when I was fairly consistently nailing the timing of moves needed to clear "Diamond Sands", I felt like I knew how to perform, but not the principle behind why my buttons were working this time. Super frustrating.
In any other vehicle, though, the game's a good time. Especially in those mechs, there's something inherently satisfying to leveling buildings, figuring out the way the game wants you to think through its puzzles. I especially like the sheer amount of secrets meant for the player to uncover, especially in the midgame. There are a surprising amount of interlocked systems for the player to navigate, with secrets revealing secrets. So much of the game feels like you're a kid messing around with toys, it's great.
This even extends to the story. You have to love how overwrought the narrative is, trying to figure the safest way to dismantle a nuke truck and somehow that involving plowing through buildings to prevent it from detonating. Like, that's such a little kid sort of narrative, it's great.
It does kinda feel like the game doesn't know when to stop taking curtain calls, though. Sort of a minor complain, especially if you're someone who got super into this game. But, like, you roll credits, then find out you succeeded, THEN have another scenario, then another, then you have to get all the gold, then a few more scenarios, and then you get to the Platinums, then... personally, I called it after the second post-credits mission, since I'm not completely invested in getting all the Golds. Nice that the option exists, though.
Blast Corps is one of those evergreen game premises. It's sort of weird to me that it doesn't have some sort of follow-up. At the same time I don't really know how you would follow it up, since they pretty much exhausted every idea they could with this premise. Sort of a Punch-Out issue, where a franchise would largely consist of updates rather than sequels. This incarnation feels like a fairly natural expression of early 5th generation gaming, finding things to do within early 3D space akin to something like Pilotwings 64. A modern version would probably look a lot better, but it'd have to be a huge resource hog to convey similar ideas on modern tech. Is this a game that could come back? I dunno, but I think there'd be something satisfying for folks if it did.
Let's get the main criticism out of the way - I hate the Backlash. I never felt confident using it. Like I know it's drifting, the trick to using it effectively is drifting, but the hitbox is so far back on the body that you have to overextend even beyond the amount you normally would for drifting. Even by the end, when I was fairly consistently nailing the timing of moves needed to clear "Diamond Sands", I felt like I knew how to perform, but not the principle behind why my buttons were working this time. Super frustrating.
In any other vehicle, though, the game's a good time. Especially in those mechs, there's something inherently satisfying to leveling buildings, figuring out the way the game wants you to think through its puzzles. I especially like the sheer amount of secrets meant for the player to uncover, especially in the midgame. There are a surprising amount of interlocked systems for the player to navigate, with secrets revealing secrets. So much of the game feels like you're a kid messing around with toys, it's great.
This even extends to the story. You have to love how overwrought the narrative is, trying to figure the safest way to dismantle a nuke truck and somehow that involving plowing through buildings to prevent it from detonating. Like, that's such a little kid sort of narrative, it's great.
It does kinda feel like the game doesn't know when to stop taking curtain calls, though. Sort of a minor complain, especially if you're someone who got super into this game. But, like, you roll credits, then find out you succeeded, THEN have another scenario, then another, then you have to get all the gold, then a few more scenarios, and then you get to the Platinums, then... personally, I called it after the second post-credits mission, since I'm not completely invested in getting all the Golds. Nice that the option exists, though.
Blast Corps is one of those evergreen game premises. It's sort of weird to me that it doesn't have some sort of follow-up. At the same time I don't really know how you would follow it up, since they pretty much exhausted every idea they could with this premise. Sort of a Punch-Out issue, where a franchise would largely consist of updates rather than sequels. This incarnation feels like a fairly natural expression of early 5th generation gaming, finding things to do within early 3D space akin to something like Pilotwings 64. A modern version would probably look a lot better, but it'd have to be a huge resource hog to convey similar ideas on modern tech. Is this a game that could come back? I dunno, but I think there'd be something satisfying for folks if it did.