Review
Played on: Nintendo 64 & Xbox One
Released: 1997
Although the Nintendo 64 wasn’t a console with large library, counting a rather low 388 in total, nobody will argue that its catalogue didn't contain lots of originality! Featuring some truly unique titles and one of those that stood out for me was Blast Corps developed by Rare. It was one of their first, among many successful and critically acclaimed, releases on the system.
Rare has in hindsight become most famous on the 64-bit platform by its genre defying shooter GoldenEye, plus its excellent spiritual sequel Perfect Dark, and platformers like Banjo Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64. Even its own Mario Kart competitor, Diddy Kong Racing, became a big success. However, one title I remember fondly outside of the most popular ones was indeed Blast Corps.
The neighbour kid either borrowed or owned, I can’t recall, this rather forgotten title. He was excellent at it, and I believe he platinumed the entire thing during some intense weeks of play. Me, on the other side, was far from as skilled but I really loved it, nonetheless. Especially the destruction and variety of vehicles.
Let’s get closer to the blast zone and take a look!
The premise of Blast Corps is as remarkably simple as it's incredibly original; a nuclear missile carrier has come out of control and only drives in a straight line. Your task is to crush any building or obstacle in the runaway carrier's path, so it doesn’t crash and blow up into a nuclear disaster.
As much as it’s satisfying to see the truck blow up all buildings and cars onscreen, wiping away absolutely everything, the sheer fun in smashing buildings to pieces to make way for the truck can not to be understated!
To pave way for the nuclear carrier in each level, illustrated on a rotating globe map with nodes which are unlocked as you complete them, you have a selection of heavy-duty construction vehicles at your disposal. While a bulldozer is straightforward, a large dump truck requires you to drift into buildings to crush them, while a mechanised robot with a jet pack allows you to wreak havoc from above by stomping down to the ground.
Or how about a weird smashing vehicle with bolts smashing out form each side of it, or maybe a three wheeled motorbike with a rocket launcher will do the job? The creativity on display by the developers is awesome! The robots also add variation as not to just become a driving based experience.
The bulldozer is the simplest vehicle to use and featured in the beginning levels, allowing beginners simply to drive into building to pull it down. However, as you progress missions require more creative solutions with other types of vehicles.
As time schedules become even tighter, the missile carrier works as a very visual reminder always moving forward, even multiple vehicles are needed in some missions. Thus, the game becomes a small sandbox world of swapping vehicles as you can jump out of one and leg it to the next one, depicted through an extremely simplistic character model and animation.
Many of the vehicles require a lot of practice to use, perhaps the trickiest is the drifting dump truck. It needs momentum to get a speedy drift and holding the drift to hit buildings sideways is tricky indeed.
However, there are more points and better time scores to set, allowing you to earn bronze, silver, gold and, if you’re really good, platinum medals for each mission. Doing so will give you access to more missions and bonus vehicles. Be aware though; it’s a tough game!
That said, there are some more relaxing missions without the moving missile carrier, where your goal is simply to find everything on the map, free some people from buildings and tear the rest down. They’ve even thrown in some bonus missions like car racing and container smashing! These help players struggling with the harder missions to get accustomed to the various vehicles and game mechanics without the stress of a timer.
Plus, they allow players to progress without hitting a wall of difficulty early on. In fact, the mission select is quite generous allowing you to play other missions if you're stuck on one particular one. For those skilled enough though, there are low-gravity missions on the moon and planets to unlock too!
While the visual destruction of the buildings is crude by today’s standards, basically consisting of square blocks falling apart, the game cleverly disguises its low polygon aesthetic by showing massive fire explosions as stuff breaks. Covering its simplicity with lots of explosions results in a game which holds up well on the N64 platform. The typical fog present in many titles on the N64 is not present as the view is mostly from above.
In addition, Rare have used their clever techniques of unique texture surfaces of that era, similar to GoldenEye, allowing the game to look ahead of what other consoles could manage at the time. With metal, stone and shiny surfaces giving it an almost bump mapping aesthetic long before this was possible.
Although the overall polygon count it extremely low, it’s about allowing the N64 to keep the framerate steady with all the destruction on screen. A clever balance, but there's no denying it looks sparse and empty at times. While the actual ground is a rather low res in texture, it depicts hills and rounded surfaces well for it's time, again it has a bump mapped aesthetic, but technically is just a flat image, which wasn’t common at the time of release.
Although you can roam a bit about in each mission, the amount of ground you can cover isn’t massive but I recall back in the day being impressed that levels were quite sizeable. When completing the hectic timed missions, and going for completing the rest of each levels objectives you have time to drive about and explore them.
Music is a little quirky sounding during missions, some of the background music is typically Rare from this era with an energetic and electronic style, but there's also an overused juvenile country tune, complete with a banjo. The mission select tune is very memorable and really cool! With voiceovers, explosion sounds and an alarming sound when a nuclear blast is imminent, the overall sound job is a well done.
When it comes to deciding which version to play these days, outside of the original running just fine on an actual N64, both the Xbox and Switch offer it in their libraries. It's a 30 fps hardcoded experience, regardless of version.
On Switch 1 & 2, it's available through the Nintendo Classics within the Nintendo Online subscription. For Switch 1 it runs 1080p, while on Switch 2 it runs 1440p. Both run better in terms of framerate which often took a hit on the N64. If you want a more authentic CRT TV feel, Switch 2 offers a great scanline effect. Plus, Switch 2 has suspend and rewind mode so you can pause and continue the game from everywhere and even rewind.
The Xbox version, originally an Xbox One release, is backwards compatible and bundled inside the excellent Rare Replay. This collection is often on sale and includes lots of other titles like Banjo Kazooie, GoldenEye, Perfect Dark and Perfect Dark Zero among many. It's 1080p with a solid dose of anti-aliasing to keep the visuals sharp and tidy. However, there are no scanlines options for it.
I guess it comes down to which system you own, but the Rare Replay version on the Xbox is by far the cheapest path these days, as the retro market is getting out of control with prices and the Switch version is locked behind a subscription. My screenshots are from the Xbox version as Switch has horrendous screenshot quality.
If you're into 90s gaming, have soft spot for Rare in this era or in general just enjoy original concepts, I'd highly recommend giving Blast Corps a try! It's an absolute N64 must-play in my opinion and is perhaps one of the better games which has been overshadowed by the more famous ones on the system.
Just prepare yourself for some challenging missions and remember to pay attention to the onscreen tips during the first ones, they'll help you understand how to play the game as it's quite an unusual concept!
