The latest User Created Content game has arrived in pure style for the Nintendo Wii. One thing we can say for sure about Blast Works from Budcat and Majesco is that it truly reaches the pinnacle of U.C.C. with its completely open ended, build anything and use it the way you want editor.
The file sharing system for Blast Works is the best one we have ever seen; allowing you to instantaneously edit, share and trade any creation either yourself or any other user has made. The game is a scrolling 2 ½ D shooter with a really creative and odd gimmick; when you shoot down an enemy or obstacle you can ‘collect’ it and it sticks to your ship and the other collected enemies kind of like Katamari.
The game itself is packed with a ton of ‘pre-made’ content for which Budcat has made a very noble and genuinely inspiring gesture; every single bit of developer made content has been created using the very same editor that you get to use as the gamer. You can edit the pre-made creations or could even re-create them from scratch to be exactly as they were. The editor and game is structured around “building your own shooter game” where you decide what the ship is, what the enemies are, what the level and scenery look like, what direction you travel, what the speed is, what the rules and conditions are, what weapons are available and what the music and sound effects are. It doesn’t stop there; you will actually be able to create every single aspect of all of those aspects and more. Any color, any of about 250 sound effects or 40 background music choices, any level orientation, background effects, water surface, underwater, water color, enemy positions, movements, speed and weapon type, camera speed and distance and well… you hopefully get the idea.
Let’s say, for example, you want to create your own home town as the back-drop and put your own car as the ship and maybe have yourself fighting off hoards of actual people that you know until you get to the boss battle with your high school math teacher whom has finally transformed into his true nature as a giant monster who is armed with confusing algebra based weaponry and perhaps even rides atop a flying school bus… you could do that. Maybe you would like to recreate all of the characters from your favorite old-school video game and set them in a new adventure… that’s totally possible. Essentially, your imagination of what this shooter could play like is up to you. There is even an almost perfect replica of Space Invaders out there.
Let’s take a moment, now that we have established the scope of Blast Works possibilities, to talk about gameplay. First, the controller options are pretty flexible; you can play with just the Wiimote, Wiimote and Nuncha or the Wiimote and Classic controller. The movement of the ships was smooth and it was easy to avoid accidentally running into things (which is a common problem with many shooters). There were really only two buttons needed to control the ships weapon and to retract the collected pieces and it works well based on the screen itself being busy enough to require simplicity of control. The pointing controls in the editor are pretty good when you are picking options and navigating menus and dragging the pieces, but we found them to be a little frustrating sometimes when you want to make slight adjustments to the size of a shape. The gameplay is pretty straight forward; you avoid enemy fire and obstacles and then figure out which scrap parts you want to snag out of the air before they fall off. The catching of the objects is a little awkward at first, because it is so odd of a thing to do, but when you get used to it and figure out the timing for retracting and expanding your collection it is a pretty cool feature. The level of difficulty really only depends on what the creator intended… so you get what you are given or go to the editor and change it to your liking. The graphics are very clean and objects are easily distinguishable from the background and other objects, and since that has plagued many an otherwise good shooter, it is a good thing. Just like with many Wii titles, the gamer should not expect eye-popping visuals and incredible detail, but will not be disappointed. The majority of what you see graphics-wise works on a polygonal cell shaded engine that is easy to look at and has very smooth shading. There weren’t any spectacular explosions or any sort of adjustable light sourcing effects to the game, so that would be one disappointment in the graphics, but it might be that the programmers weren’t able to incorporate that aspect into all of the possible variations of shape, color, movement and size… who knows.
In many ways, the game reminds one of Forza Motorsport; the editor requires artistic talent, creative ability, imagination and patience. You can create just about any graphic image on Forza if you take the time and have the skills; on Blast Works you can create just about anything you want, but you will make crap if that is what you put in to it. This game is, as Forza, destined to end up being more about building and trading than it is about playing… but isn’t that why we do it?
You can look here to see some examples of some of the objects, ships, enemies and levels that have been made, but the image quality on the upload is really bad and grainy and even so, you can really see a huge difference when you actually see a creation in the game play.
