BLAKE STONE PLANET STRIKE
Basically a 20 level expansion for the original game, everyone says this is worse… and they’re right!
One of the biggest problems is the new map. The little rotating one in the HUD sure looks cute, but there is no longer a large one to check when wandering around which makes navigating MUCH more tedious, with it being easy to get lost or forget where a locked door was. Why would you take out the most useful part of your game?!
You can also zoom in on the mini map and look for secrets that way, which is a neat idea but this function uses up a resource… so if you run out, get ready for good ol’ wall humping!
And then there are other new features, some good, some whatever, most bad. Animations and action is a little bit snappier which is good (I think the engine was tweaked a bit). There are some new weapons but nothing particularly exciting.
Instead of finding the red key to exit a level in this one, you have to find a bomb and then destroy a security system in each level, which makes things feel a little more exciting than just key hunting even though it’s essentially the same thing.
There are lots of new enemies (though quite a few are bosses from the first game turned into standard enemies), with them all being monsters… no humans this time around.
… only their dead bodies, sometimes in what appear to be mass executions, which suggests the villain succeeded in making a mutant army and wiped out remaining humans, but the game works against this by still having human scientists wandering about as in the first game. Should have replaced them with robots you try to “hack” or something.
And don’t get too excited, that’s as cool as the story-telling gets in this game. The actual story is just finishing off the villain who got away at the end of the last game.
Anyway, one of the more annoying enemies are invisible ones (they look like shadows), who are incredibly hard to see when you have the new “lighting” system enabled which basically just reduces the draw distance to a few feet. They aren’t as bad if you turn that “feature” off (and you should), but they’re still annoying.
Enemy encounters can be more interesting in this one, as the game uses triggers to alert enemies or warp them in. So you may be walking down a corridor, and all of a sudden an enemy around the next corner is alerted and pops out to attack. As mentioned, enemies can warp in but there is no animation or even a warning sound, they just suddenly appear behind you.
Oh, sometimes you’ll trigger doors instead and a bunch of enemies will storm in… sometimes you have to kill a certain enemy before a barrier will raise, too.
So all in all, it feels like they were trying to make combat more exciting, but sadly these mechanics aren’t used enough nor in interesting enough ways… which brings me to the biggest problem with this game.
The level design ssuuccckksss. It’s so, SO boring! Just lazy, samey looking rooms and corridors with very few interesting moments. Like the first game, each level has a name telling you where it is, and in the original the levels often vaguely/abstractly felt like those places, but that’s rarely the case here.
There is no sense of place, or any sense of imagination. Just boring, lazy layouts. The single stand-out was level 9, which felt most like a level from the first game. I mean, they didn’t HAVE to have a sense of place, just be interesting to explore. Oh, and the mechanics from the first game like one-way doors and switches are barely used here which contributes to everything feeling samey and boring… this makes the lack of a full map even more frustrating.
So, to summerise:
- New useless map
- New annoying features
- New features that aren’t utilised enough in interesting ways
- Boring as hell level design
I managed to soft-lock the game at one point too, so that was cool.
At least it’s short!
