"Weird giant robot...thingies taken to a new level!"

One of the first games for the N64, Blast Corps is a strange one. Rare developed this little game, seemingly out of nowhere. One day it just popped up. No relation to any older games, no hype. But despite that, it's still very interesting.

The basic plot of the game is that a firetruck containing a nuclear missile is driving forward. You, whoever you are, must clear a path for it. So, controlling a range of vehicles, trucks, and even robots, you must destroy the towns and cities in its way to allow it to drive safely. Seeing as how whoever you work for would rather demolish tons of buildings, eliminate dozens of cities, and kill thousands upon thousands of people or leave them homeless instead of simply stopping the damn truck, I'm guessing you work for the government. So, that's the setup. Destroy everything in the way of the truck using whatever you are given.

For a first generation N64 game, this looks really amazing. The backgrounds are crisp and detailed. Vehicles look relatively good too. But the really amazing thing is the giant robots on-screen. For the time their polygon counts were extremely high. Their textures were smooth, and every one of them all had a realistic metallic look to them. More amazing is the huge levels that they would let the robots walk around in, always staying at a solid framerate. There are even some small renders hidden through out the game. Whether you were exploring an open field or demolishing a metropolis, the game looked and played great.

The gameplay is sort of mixed. It can be divided into two categories: Freeroaming levels and timed levels.

Freeroaming levels are some of the most interesting and innovative areas in an N64 game. Rather than worry about some stupid truck, you simply wonder around a huge level and destroy buildings. Every building you destroy gives you more money. To end the level all you have to do is find the orange truck. Other than that, everything in the level is up to you. Each level is loaded with extras to find. Some have extra cars, others have extra robots, etc. These also typically have you playing as the robots, which is by far much more fun. With vehicles, you must usually use some stupid ammo, or just ram a building until it collapses. But the robots all are program for quick destruction, and are alot of fun to play as. Every one is good at different things. The one with a jetpack is good for destroying tall buildings, since he can fly up. The one which can roll can take out small buildings really fast. The athletic one is just very fast and good overall, etc. So, I like these alot.

Then there are the timed levels. Not all of them are bad. The ones with the robots are actually pretty fun, but the rest are a living hell. Most of the levels actually did have a timer on them, or were basically a timed level. The majority of the levels were destroying the cities before the firetruck hit them. So, it would basically mean you would choose a vehicle, run in front of the truck and try to destroy the buildings as fast as you can. With robots, this is a cinch. But the regular vehicles cannot destroy anything worth of crap. You end up just ramming it over and over praying that the building collapses. There is a futuristic morotcycle, which actually has missiles, but I'll explain why that doesn't work in a minute. To make it worse, Rare decided to try to stick in some minigames. So, a couple levels have you just race around a track, for some odd reason.

Now, why do the vehicles which actually have weapons still not work? Simple: The control on this game sucks. Aiming is a total pain in the ass, and it’s nearly impossible to actually drive the thing in the direction you want it to go. This leads to having the firetruck two feet behind you while you're close to destroying a building, then you accidentally back into it, causing it to explode and everyone to die.

The sound is fairly high quality for the time. It has some small voice acting, which sounds well done. The explosions and mechanics also sound realistic. Then there's the music. While some of the themes are ok, alot of them are just plain annoying. I'm supposed to be saving the world from this giant nuke in a firetruck, but there's still some stupid banjo music in the background (which REALLY doesn't help the game's image considering the character you play as looks like a farmer).

Overall, it's still quite a good game. If the game had been either all robots, or all freeroaming levels, it could've been a great game. But regardless, it was a good attempt by Rare to try to do something innovative, and I respect them for that. Maybe one day we'll see a Blast Corps 2.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/30/01, Updated 09/06/03