PlanetDreamcast | Games | Reviews | Charge 'N Blast

Charge 'N Blast "...And my duty is... to blast them." - Review By Mr. Domino Page 2/2 BOOM! It's huge explosions such as this which make the game exciting and fun to play. The timer is a major factor since charging your weapons eats away at the clock. While you don't have to wait for your weapons to fully charge to fire, you yield a much more powerful blast as a result. While it's best to rely on powerful, fully charged shots, sometimes you'll find the screen flooded with enemy fire or an imposing threat to let out several quick bursts. You can only move left or right in Charge 'N Blast, and while you're moving you are unable to fire or charge a shot. The cursor aims your crosshair around the screen (the game supports both the analog stick and D-pad). The shoulder buttons are used to evade left or right, and the four face buttons are assigned to the three available weapons while the fourth button fires the selected weapon. Very nice and easy to understand, and you'll want the precision the control brings when playing the game. Yes, you'll actually need to develop some aiming skills. This is not a pattern shooter by any means. Enemies will attack and move about at random, and if you can't aim fast enough you're as good as gone. The randomness is a great thing in a short game on rails such as this. Sure, you take the same path through the same areas each time you play the game, but you're not repeating the same motions each time. Repetition would kill a game such as this, and the randomness really does make the game a fun and interesting challenge each time you pop, put, or place the disc into your Dreamcast. Of course, you don't have to play alone unless everyone really does hate you, and thankfully Charge 'N Blast has a two-player mode. While slowdown does make itself known a bit in this mode thanks to the doubling of explosions, it by no means detracts from the game nor interferes with the gameplay. While the two-player mode may seem to make the game easier, it's actually quite a bit more difficult to dodge enemy fire. The enemy shots are fast enough as it is, and you can pretty much dodge them by moving away from your last position in the single player mode. However, when playing with another, it can be difficult under pressure to see who the shot is intended for, which is a good though probably not entirely fair way to increase the challenge in the two-player mode. Unfortunately, there's a few other things that aren't fair or good about the game, which leads us into "The Bad." See the building way in the background? That along with the hovercraft and trees are at your mercy. The Bad The biggest gripe about the game I have is the confusion caused by the massive explosions. Yes, the explosions are fun, but they also really obscure enemy fire. You'll feel particularly pround of that blast which took out a couple of lizards and some rocks only to see a laser emerge from the cloud and debris, strike your guy without warning, and force him to remove an article of clothing. This gets annoying, although I can see this being part of the overall strategy of the game. It's the downside of the really powerful blasts or penalty for letting enemies get too close so that to shooting at them also poses a danger itself. At any rate, I still find it annoying, especially since the game basically encourages you to, well, charge and blast. To charge 'n blast is to obscure 'n get hit. It's just something to keep in mind as you play the game. The game is also quite difficult, and not just because of the above reason. The timer is what will get you the most. At any given moment you'll have less than a minute to wipe out a wave of monsters. The pressure to charge, aim, and fire onto an enemy increases with each second, because if you don't kill them all within the time limit, you die. Accuracy is of utmost importance. Time is very valuable, and charging a shot for two seconds that misses the target is a far stiffer penalty than actually getting hit by the enemy itself. While you can find items hidden within the scenery such as time extenders and health restorers, you don't really have any time to explore the stage and look for them. Thus, these bonuses are more often than not just random flukes from a misfired shot or large explosion which just happened to reveal the item. The music isn't very good, though I can't say it's bad as well. It's loud and arcade-y, perfectly suited to this kind of game even if nothing about it is particularly memorable. Far worse are the vocal samples used throughout the game, few as they are. The voice which announces each scene that time is running down quickly becomes annoying, and the general voice acting is very poor. The introduction has Johnny Rock (yes, his name is really "Johnny Rock") talking in monotone about his occupation of blowing stuff up. It's as interesting as that sentence sounds: "I don't care what the heck those things are, or where they come from. The only thing that matters to me is that I do my job right. And my duty is... to blast them." All you do is blast stuff as well, so, if you don't enjoy doing your duty, you obviously will not enjoy Charge 'N Blast. It's a pretty simple concept, and if you don't enjoy the gameplay for what it is, the game will quickly become old. There are a couple of hidden characters to earn and a time attack mode, but aside from that there's not much to it other than a great arcade shooter. Although it is technically a short game with only six levels, the difficulty of those levels make it seem longer than that probably sounds. Of course, the difficulty is something that will likely turn others away as well -- there is little relief to be found in the option mode aside from tacking on an extra life and extending the timer by a few seconds. It's a pretty hard game, but also quite fun. Those expecting anything more than just a fun shooter are bound to be disappointed. It's really a simple game. There's not much to do other than blowing stuff up. While there is a point system, it's not really interesting enough to keep replaying the game. The whole "guiding a cursor around a screen" style of shooter may also be off-putting to some, since the game largely plays like a lightgun game without the gun. The Final Word Charge 'N Blast is a very fun if somewhat repetitive game and well worth picking up if you can get past the above nagging complaints. It's a well done arcade shooter and the perfect game to toss in when you have some time to kill. Developer: Sega Publisher: Xicat Interactive Genre: Shooter Highs: Fun concept, great graphics, and random enemies keeps things fresh. Lows: Sometimes unfairly difficult, poor voice acting, and short length. Other: 1-2 players, VMU Compatible (5 blocks), Jump Pack Compatible. Final Score: (out of a possible 10) Visit this Game's Dreamcast Database Entry Previous Reviews Comments on this review? Mail Feedback.