"A great Scorched Earth type game that deserves a lot more recognition"

Anyone remember Scorched Earth? The old DOS tank game where you had to shoot at the enemy tank, and had to judge height, wind, velocity, etc.? Well, Blast Doors takes Scorched Earth, and ups it to the Nth degree. This puts you on a 3D Battlefield with other opponents who want you dead. It's not just point and shoot though, you need to set the bearing, height, packets (how much force you want in your shot), and you also get to choose between many different weapons, each with a different feature. Some are more powerful, some damage specific parts, and some have a huge blast radius. The blasts are colorful too, and there's witty quotes that the enemies say before they shoot and when they die. You can set the enemies to work fully against you, or have all out wars. It's not all shoot bombs at your neighbor though, as you get pelted by bombs, you're base gets damaged, and you need to repair it. If you don't repair it in time, or you take too many hits, you're done. It's usually better if you're the last man standing... You also have a certain amount of money to allocate to your different areas, you need to buy those missiles you shoot, and you need to buy those repair items. You can also by special upgrades, like upgrades to your radar and everything. As you take hits, if certain areas get affected, you start to have less power on your shots and such. There's also special things like mud bombs to raise yourself to new heights, jumper rockets to move you to another area, etc. The battles take place on a 3D circular field. The border can also be set to do certain things when a missile or person hit it, such as bounce, pass through to the other side, etc. The detail put into this game is amazing. It deserves a lot more recognition... Anyway, let's break it down a bit more...

Graphics: 9/10
The explosions look really nice and detailed, and they're all different colors, it's like an awesome light show, well, a deadly one. There's no graphical errors, either. A good, solid graphics effort.

Sounds: 8/10
The shots, the lock and load sound, and the people talking (when they make a shot or die) sound nice. The explosions are good too. The music is decent, not great, but it's nothing to shoot speakers over.

Story: 9/10
Here's the story:

In the late 21st century, the world supply of fossil fuels dwindles away to nothing. The industrialized nations panic, searching desperately for alternative fuels. But it is too late. The monolith of industry has expanded beyond the limits of Earth's resources.

Transport fails.
Food supplies stand still.
The world erupts into chaotic warfare.

The United States splinters into five indistinct factions. Two of these groups - The Militia Free States and the Holy Christian Republic - expand the right to bear arms to include all forms of weaponry. The other three states - Union Territory, Ecotopia, and The Free Enterprise Zone - are forced to arm their border lands in self-defense.

The big winner in all this arming and re-arming is Militech. Located in Swiss Occupied Europe, Militech takes the lead in military technology with its premier line of Designer Ordinance. These tactical devices are cheap, colorful, and effective. Militech is able to deliver supplies world-wide with their exclusive fleet of solar blimps.

Militech weapons are snapped up by Japanese Rebels, Russian Mercenaries, Arabic Nomads, African Ranchers, American Farmers - in fact, by darn near everyone. Militechs transforms the world. No more futile shoving matches when your neighbor disputes water rights. Just nuke him. No more pussyfooting with rifles, trucks, liquor and relatives. Now the battle ends in minutes. And the really cool thing is that the Aurora Borealis becomes visible world-wide, day and night.

(Story courtesy of the game's website)

Challenge: Varies
You can make it easy or hard on yourself, your choice.

Fun: 9/10
It's really fun nuking some computer guy named Ed with incredibly large missile blasts. Believe me, this is a very fun game.

Overall: 9/10
This is a very good game that definitely deserves to have more recognition, so go play it right away.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10 | Originally Posted: 06/16/01, Updated 06/16/01

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