"Touch Blank"

In the good old days when light-gun games were building up steam (which never amounted to anything), amongst all the realistic violence of the Time Crises and Virtua Cops, there was one gunner which opted to provide light, humourous, fun-for-all entertainment. Point Blank was a crazy collection of shooting mini-games comprised of some of the most bizarre shooting sequences you could ever imagine. It was successful enough to inspire a sequel, after which the franchise just dropped off the radar. Well Point Blank is back now, but without a gun accessory in sight; instead the DS stylus is used. Um, whaat!?

Visuals - 8
Sound & Music - 7
Gameplay - 6
Longevity - N/A
Replayability - 7
Difficulty - 7-8

Mini-games - 7
VERDICT - 5.5

Tap, Tap, Bang, Bang
Point Blank takes you on a ride through a variety of different mini-games, each with their own objective. Most require careful quick thinking as you are tasked with destroying targets of your (red) colour without hitting anything else. Usually there is some sort of twist here, for example all the targets are placed on a rotating board which spins in all 3 axes depending on how you shoot it up. This leads to a frantic pace which is not all mindless stylus tapping as one would originally assume.

Other games include shooting up all the cardboard cut-out ninjas or gangsters that appear, shooting all the differences between 2 scenes, shooting up some launched fireworks to result in festive sparks, and even shooting up the fleece of some flying sheep! As you may have gathered, the game really enforces the shooting aspect.

Now without the light-gun peripheral, how do all these games translate to basic stylus tapping on a small screen? The whole experience must surely be lost in the translation right? The simple answer to this is yes. The stylus offers much greater precision over a light-gun for those of us inexperienced with firearms (which I hope includes most of us!) This leads to many of the ported games losing a lot of their original appeal. Tapping lunatic ninjas is simply not as enjoyable as shooting them up with a plastic gun.

1000 ways to shoot 'em up
All things considered, Point Blank DS still offers some good times. Many of the challenges have been boosted in difficulty considering the relative ease of 'aiming', especially at the higher difficulty levels. There are around about 40 different mini-games in all, split into 8 different categories: target shooting, rapid fire, mental focus etc... although as I mentioned earlier, it does get samey since everything involves lots and lots of shooting/tapping.

In addition to the main arcade mode, you also have a couple of other deviations to hold you through. Brain Massage focuses on one aspect of training (eg. marksmanship) and gives you a ranking based on 5 criteria (accuracy, reaction etc.) indicating how great of a shooter you have become. There are a lot of titles to unlock, and amassing passing certain milestones will net you some more challenges. This mode is dedicated to those who like to replay, a lot.

For the high-scorers, the freeplay mode grants access to all the games featured within and enables one to play them through at any difficulty level. The aim here is simply to pick your dessert, and eat it up until you are satisfied with an unbeatable enough fat score.

There is also a VS. mode where you can play with a friend via single-card play. I haven't been playing this frequently; as much as it may seem like a great bonus, it just isn't all that fun tapping out everything with someone by your side. In the arcade and Playstation versions, it was exciting facing off with someone else on the same screen; now that you both play on separate consoles, it is no better than playing alone.

Game with no Aim
The DS touchscreen has encouraged many developers to take more creative leaps with their works. Porting Point Blank was a success graphically and aurally (the gun shots sound spot on); the hardware does a good job of keeping up the zany spriteness. Unfortunately without a gun to point with, it has lost the key gimmick which made it so successful with gamers in the first place. In light of this, it is a wasted conversion. But taken on its own, this reincarnation does offer a wide variety of touch-centric mini-games which are still amusing as ever, and fun in very short bursts (a single play taking only 5-10 minutes to get through). After a short while, all the nonsensical tapping does get very , very stale though.

5.5/10 - Looks the part, but totally unarmed

08/12/06

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 12/07/06