Blast Works
Ages: Everyone

On the box there are three icons - Build - Trade - Destroy. Build is the first and build is what this game has been designed for. It is a 3D DESIGN PROGRAM with plenty of bells and whistles to keep players engaged for months - even years.

From the Main Menu you can access both Play and Editor. Play involves a deliberately simplistic - tho not necessarily easy - dogfight. Ships that you hit with your barrage of bullets are disintegrated and added to your plane - soon you look like a flying junk pile (you can hide these accretions with the Z button). However, if you are hit once, it is "Game Over". You can surmise from the slim treatment of the game that there is something else up Budcat's sleeve.

The Editor is were you can make your own game - either as simple as the one you have just played - or something much weirder and complex - or simpler. There are already built ships, weapons, enemies and landscapes. Having alertly experienced 3D architectural programs, I opted for constructing from original shapes. The tools were incredibly sophisticated but easy to use, particularly with contextual help.

Players will continually find something new to amuse them - just the selection of bullet trajectories will fascinate: bubble gun, sonic wave, flame thrower, HLCC which looks like a swarm of mosquitoes. Backgrounds area equally rich in choices though players may have to earn some of them, but you can add mountains, do underwater scenes, gradually shade sky color from a pallette that offers much more than primary colors. Eventually players will come to set the style of their game - filters will make it look like a pen and paper drawing, or cartoon graphics plus more subtle enhancements.

The instruction manual is excellent, the beginning pages show the Wii controls and the actions assigned to them in easily readable sized text - Good for them. Budcat, it is claimed, used this program to make the game - see if you can surpass them. Oh, and you can trade your constructions on-line, as it says on the box cover.

Fun Factor: Creative play.
Player Friendly: Easy to use design tools.

Reviewed by: Editor - 08/08