Gaming Forums => Nintendo Gaming => Topic started by: KDR_11k on July 29, 2008, 04:05:30 PM
Title: Blast Works
Post by: KDR_11k on July 29, 2008, 04:05:30 PM
Search didn't find a dedicated thread...
Anyway, I finally got the game from a british store, it arrived just before I left on a vacation so I got to spend some time with it but without online play.
The singleplayer campaign isn't much to write home about, it does have five different campaigns of three levels each that are played in order and have varying themes. It's possible to end up with a ship so huge that everything dies as it enters the screen and the bullets give you huge numbers of extra lives (the number of points between lives is constant for some reason). I think that was very hard to do in Tumiki Fighters.
The editors are useful but limited.
Shape editor: There's no rotate function for entire selections (pieces are rotated individually), all blocks must have their "prism axis" aligned to one cardinal axis (can only rotate around that), mirroring can only be done along the horizontal axises, a piece's prism axis cannot be changed once it's placed, rotors are single blocks and have limited flexibility (would have been better to just declare a set of blocks as a rotor instead), shapes cannot be exported, scaling down is not possible if any selected block would fall below the minimum size as a result, rotated blocks just go haywire if you try to scale them with the d-pad, blocks that occupy the same position on your view cannot be selected easily (in Blender you just click multiple times to cycle through all objects in one space), there are no blocks with slopes in more than one direction (no spheres, pyramids or cones), trying to click on a scaling point on a block can change the selection instead.
Bullet Editor: Pretty good but lacks the ability to have complex projectiles (shapes) for some purposes, all bullets must look like one of the block shapes but cannot be reshaped (no elongated bullets, only squares...), can't rotate with the movement direction (that was possible in Tumiki Fighters!), no way to set an absolute direction for a bullet, no way to fork a separate bullet pattern, many stage patterns make too many assumptions like the roundshot automatically aiming at a target instead of travelling straight or the Wall pattern assigning random velocities (both of these could have been done with a separate stage but cannot be undone) and the restriction to only one adjustable value per stage (and some don't even use that) is highly restrictive (no burst fire rate, for example). New stages don't inherit the look and speed of previous stages, instead defaulting to small yellow squares at 50% speed no matter what. At the default volumes it's almost impossible to hear the sound effects you assign to the bullets over the background music.
(Player) Ship Editor: It has an integrated shape editor but the shape of a ship cannot be exported back into the shape library (only shapes in that library can be imported into others). The speed of the ship is hardcoded.
(Advanced) Enemy Editor: Shapes can't be exported, the stored position is the center of the shape so removing parts won't make the remaining parts stay in the same place, the rotation center is always the center of the bounding box which causes issues with large rotors (they count as occupying only one half of their visible shape and it's not arranged around the center) and, the worst, movements have a fixed list of patterns that one can be chosen from. Especially the movements are aggravating, there's only a very short, very restrictive list of movements allowed, this should have been implemented like the bullet editor! There are even some movements used in the premade levels that aren't available to the user! Hell, I wrote a more customizable enemy system in BASIC when I was in school! For some reason it's possible to create 32 groups (according to the manual) but only 25 parts to put into them...
Level Editor: I haven't done that much with it but in the absense of some triggers moving the editor camera affects the preview mode. Also it's not possible to use a custom ship in the preview mode even though a level can be made to assume a completely different player ship. The same applies to the enemy editor preview BTW, you can only test it with a default ship even if you want to make a ship with much less or much more firepower. Also it's not possible to make stuff come from any side other than the one the view scrolls toward since enemies are spawned as their positions come into view.
As I said I haven't tested the online stuff yet. The shapes I made were some attempts at recreating units from RTS mods I made (the abstract shapes mod was strangely difficult to emulate while the more normal spaceship mod was really easy) and a top-down tank level (which looked fairly convincing despite the game being intended for spaceships or planes). What really sucks is that things that are set to "shatter" don't shatter, they just fall normally but blink, marking them as non-collectable. That looks just damn ugly and forces you to split your enemies into lots of small parts to get a proper explosion. Tumiki Fighters had stuff break down into its individual blocks, while TF's shapes were much simpler it'd still be better if BW's shapes would break into at least a few fragments (or just show an explosion).
The game comes with three premade levels demonstrating different styles, one using paper planes, origami and various desk utensils as enemies along with a pen&paper look, one demonstrating levels with hard geometry that kills on contact (it's made of enemies) and one demonstrating just weird shapes.
While it is possible to make a vertically scrolling level the predefined movements only really work for horizontal, left-to-right scrolling.
The worst omission IMO is the lack of powerups, you can hack something together by using enemies that drop parts this game was intended to let user creativity reign free, restricting the designer to the tumiki mechanics is not a good idea. I think it would have been enough to allow creating powerups that have a shape and change the player ship's bullet pattern (preferrably with a list which to change it to when which other pattern is installed so weapon power can be increased as well as weapons switched) but no such option made it in.
Title: Re: Blast Works
Post by: DAaaMan64 on July 29, 2008, 04:07:58 PM
I bought this for $10 yesterday, I'm pretty interested to try it out.
I'm not much of a user generated content kinda person though.
We'll see!
Title: Re: Blast Works
Post by: D_Average on July 29, 2008, 07:04:36 PM
Just got this yesterday too. IMO the level editor SUX for noons to level editing...
Title: Re: Blast Works
Post by: NWR_Lindy on July 29, 2008, 08:54:47 PM
Yeah, I just got this yesterday for $10 as well. I thought the ability to build your ship out of defeated enemies was neat, but I haven't tried the editors yet.
Title: Re: Blast Works
Post by: DAaaMan64 on July 29, 2008, 08:57:21 PM
I hear the game is to easy and boring. But I haven't thrown it in yet.
Title: Re: Blast Works
Post by: Morari on July 29, 2008, 09:23:34 PM
Where is everyone getting it for $10?!
Title: Re: Blast Works
Post by: DAaaMan64 on July 29, 2008, 10:04:44 PM
Yesterday, Best Buy
Title: Re: Blast Works
Post by: ShyGuy on July 29, 2008, 10:42:26 PM
was there any left at the Newport highway BestBuy?
Title: Re: Blast Works
Post by: DAaaMan64 on July 29, 2008, 11:07:23 PM
IDK, there were three at Valley Best Buy. Sorry SG
Title: Re: Blast Works
Post by: D_Average on July 29, 2008, 11:09:46 PM
It must have been an error as all Best Buy's have marked it back to 19.99
Title: Re: Blast Works
Post by: D_Average on July 29, 2008, 11:17:07 PM
Now that I've played the game a bit, here are my thoughts:
Pros:
Build your own ship, level, enemies, etc New concept (as far as enemies gelling into your ship) Tons of free levels to download Multiple controlller layouts
Cons: Possibly the clumiest Wii menu system ever Campaign and Arcade modes are pretty easy and get boring after 10 mins Not a lot of strategy required While the editor system is decently robust, using it feels like a burden and a chore
All of that said, this game should have been released on WiiWare. At $10 its a good buy, but I would have been furious had a paid full price (which I almost did day one). At its core its a cool concept, but the wrapping around the package smells like sour horse balls.
Not sure who is to blame, the developer or publisher. But whoever it is, they deserved this game ending up in the bargain bin.
Title: Re: Blast Works
Post by: DAaaMan64 on July 30, 2008, 02:12:24 AM
It must have been an error as all Best Buy's have marked it back to 19.99
They may not have expected people to jump on it like they did.
LOL For a different perspective, I actually find this game pretty cool. Especially for $10 bucks. The game is pretty satisfying and funny once your ship consumes 1/3 - 2/3 of the screen :D
The boss modes are pretty uninspired and I haven't messed with the editors yet, but arcade mode made me pretty happy.
Title: Re: Blast Works
Post by: KDR_11k on July 30, 2008, 04:30:34 AM
I think the campaign mode is less easy at higher difficulties.
Oh, right, one thing I was missing was organizing patterns, currently all parts of an enemy shoot as much as they can (though some can be inactive until a part of the enemy is blown off), no way to get the classic arcade idea of enemies that attack you with different patterns. Would probably have gone hand in hand with a movement editor.
For no-online singleplayer I think Tumiki Fighters is better, may just be a product of nostalgia though.
I do like the infinite canvas approach of the level editor though, kinda confusing at first but manageable I think. I just wish the zoom level in the editor didn't influence preview mode.
Forking bullet patterns would allow making better muzzle flares on guns, currently I just use a large bullet for 1-2 frames as the first stage but for missiles that doesn't look too good and I wish I could change the look of the bullets more. Also sometimes I wish I could give the player ship more HP, for my tank setting that would mean only cannons can really instakill the player with machineguns being only peashooters (since, well, it's a tank) but as it is I'll probably have to turn the player ship into some kind of Rambo to explain why single bullets kill him.
Oh and one thing I've been missing a lot is a movement pattzern to rotate the part towards the player (without moving) to show gun turrets, it just looks silly to have aimed shots from a gun with a visible barrel since that doesn't aim at the enemy.
Title: Re: Blast Works
Post by: Flames_of_chaos on July 30, 2008, 01:17:39 PM
If anyone is looking for blast works at best buy, they bumped it up to 19.99 yesterday. Still 20 bucks is worth it hell I think it was worth it at 40 bones.
Title: Re: Blast Works
Post by: vudu on July 30, 2008, 03:17:25 PM
It must have been an error as all Best Buy's have marked it back to 19.99
They may not have expected people to jump on it like they did.
LOL For a different perspective, I actually find this game pretty cool. Especially for $10 bucks. The game is pretty satisfying and funny once your ship consumes 1/3 - 2/3 of the screen :D
The boss modes are pretty uninspired and I haven't messed with the editors yet, but arcade mode made me pretty happy.
Yeah, the game is definately worth 10 bux, I just wish they would have spent more time on it. They must have been smoking some pretty strong stuff to see this as a full priced game.
Title: Re: Blast Works
Post by: KDR_11k on July 31, 2008, 02:07:57 AM
They probably saw it as a "game 2.0" with user generated content taking the center stage and the main campaign being more or less a tech demo.
Title: Re: Blast Works
Post by: GoldenPhoenix on July 31, 2008, 03:23:42 AM
Yeah the game has an extremely powerful creation tool, so I had no problem paying 39.99 for it (I think that was the price it was at when it launched).
Title: Re: Blast Works
Post by: D_Average on July 31, 2008, 09:56:15 AM
Anyone made any sweet stages yet? If so, link to stage on depot?
Title: Re: Blast Works
Post by: KDR_11k on July 31, 2008, 10:36:29 AM
When I tried to register the website errored out and while my email and Wii are considered taken my account wasn't created. I'll probably have to resolve that by contacting someone there...
Title: Re: Blast Works
Post by: vherub on July 31, 2008, 12:28:08 PM
I had an error when I registered a couple days ago (using firefox 3). Try requesting your password to be resent (there is an option at the log on screen). Once I did that, I followed the link in the email and am able to log on and download content without problem.
Title: Re: Blast Works
Post by: D_Average on July 31, 2008, 03:29:01 PM
I'm now having problems w/ the website too. Maybe the developers ran off to spend the influx of 10 dollar bills that just rolled in.
Title: Re: Blast Works
Post by: KDR_11k on August 01, 2008, 02:33:38 AM
Yeah, that worked (though apparently password resets don't require a confirmation and you could do it to other people by just inputting their email o_O). For some reason Opera (I hate version 9.5...) refused to save the "allow cookies" setting for miiplaza.net so I had to enable them with F12 to log in...
