Nice vest! Where can I get one? Review

Nice vest! Where can I get one?

Unfortunately, that’s not a vest, it’s a high powered explosive set to a

timer. If the timer reaches zero, your body will cease to exist as a

single entity. You and four others are trapped in a small cube with the

knowledge that you will all eventually explode. Is there hope? Why, yes!

All you have to do is steal the glowing sphere from the other people rigged

to explode and place it in your goal. Sound easy? Keep dreaming. If an

enemy places the sphere into your goal, you lose time on your bomb. There

are also spikes and electric pulses that will blow you up the instant you

touch them. Still too easy? I forgot to mention that there is only one

goal on each side of the cube. If your goal isn’t on the floor, you have

to rotate the room until it is. Gravity always remains the same, so if an

enemy rotates the cube, you have a long fall ahead of you; better hope you

don’t land on anything dangerous. Now are you worried? Good, let’s play .

. .

‘Where are the good multiplayer games?’ is the constant cry of the home

console enthusiast. Far be it for a game player to have any friends, many

game designers completely dismiss the two player option on a game. It is a

rare occasion when a game is designed for more than one player. Blast

Chamber is such a game. With fast-paced action, and the ability to

destroy your enem . . . er, friends, Blast Chamber one of the few

games that is more fun the more actual people you have playing. Much like

Bomberman, your object is to scatter your opponents face all over

the room. This leads to much gloating and screaming by your human friends,

so you’d better play this in a sound proof room.

The graphics for Blast Chamber are decent and smooth. While each

individual character is not something to drool over, the overall feel of

the game is epic. The cube itself rotates very smoothy and in-sinc with

one of the players putting his foot on the side wall. Sometimes, the

rotation of the cube can be so disorienting, that you have to pause for a

second and readjust to the new orientation. While the graphics may not be

as pretty as other games, it’s definitly a lot smoother than most.

Hearing a scream echo across the chamber as one of your opponents bites the

big one really gets you in the mood to win, because next time, that scream

may be you. The sound in Blast Chamber is remarkably simplistic for

a CD game, but effective nonetheless. In an age when announcers are

getting popular, one would not fit in this psudeo-sport. ‘Bill runs across

the chamber. Oh, he gets the ball, will he make it in time? No, guess

they’ll have to clean him up with a sponge.’ That kind of commentary just

wouldn’t fit. So, while some people say that you can never have enough

sound, Blast Chamber proved them wrong by only using a few sounds to

get the job done.

The differences between the Playstation and Saturn versions are purely

aesthetic. The graphics on the Playstation version are more refined than

those on the Saturn. This is a drawback for visual pleasure, but you can

actually see what is happening a little better on the Saturn due to the

worse graphics. (Don’t ask me to explain, it just is. I don’t know why

either.) There is also less sound on the Saturn version, but only in

situations where sound doesn’t matter, such as the player select screen.

These differences give the Saturn version a little faster load time, but

the Playstation version still looks better.

In order to play this game properly, one must get a four player adapter.

The one player, puzzle solving game is remarkably boring, while playing a

multiplayer game with computer opponents just isn’t as much fun as with

humans. If you go out and get the multi-player adapter, get a couple of

generic controllers for about ten bucks. That way you’ll save a little

money and still get to play Blast Chamber for all it’s worth.