Blake Stone: Planet Strike!

The Good
While British agent Blake Stone was walking around the corridors of each of the six space stations in Aliens of Gold, Dr. Pyrus Goldfire popped in to say hello, fire a few shots at Blake, then teleported back out. The last battle between Blake and Goldfire was on the ninth level of episode six, and ended with Goldfire teleporting out – just as he did before. After focusing on other cases for a while, Blake is asked to track Goldfire down somewhere on the planet Selon.

While playing Planet Strike, I noticed that a few things were slightly different. Rather than shooting your way toward the teleporter that will gain you access to the next level, the main objective has you finding the Fission Detonator hidden somewhere in the level and dropping it next to a Security Cube to destroy it. You still have to find key-cards to unlock certain doors. Once you get to the teleporter, the statistics are accompanied by a large blueprint representing the selectable areas. This blueprint looks good.

Of course, stopping you from achieving this objective will be heaps of guards. Most of the bigger guards are basically the bosses that you had to defeat in the last game. The smaller guards look similar to those in the last game, with slightly modified heads.

While I was playing the game, I noticed the new Automap, which I believe is an useful feature to have. You see, when you walk around, the map scrolls and you are always shown on the map (as a white square). The way you can zoom between different magnifications is cool; and by doing this, enemies, crates, and push-walls are revealed. Having the map in the status area saves me a lot of time pressing the [Tab] key to access a similar map.

I enjoyed listening to the game's soundtrack. It sounds more sinister than the soundtrack of the last game. And like Aliens of Gold, the soundtrack reflects the future setting of the game. The sound effects are also good. I read in the Trivia section that each sound played backwards, and I noticed this as I played the game. It is probably a good thing that JAM chose not to re-create the sounds from scratch, but instead chose to modify their sounds.

The Bad
I didn't think that the Automap should have been in a place like the status area, in a square that scrolls as you move. The programmers should have assigned a key that will bring up the map, and that map should have stayed on screen as you move around. This is what happened in Corridor 7.

One of the new weapons is the Anti-Plasma cannon, which is designed to blast holes through doors. Well, it didn't work for one-way doors, which are the doors I hate.

The Bottom Line
In conclusion, Planet Strike is similar to the original game. The only differences are the map in the status area, the new weapons, and the slightly improved graphics. I could say that Planet Strike is much darker than Aliens of Gold due to the level of brightness the game uses, and as I mentioned earlier, the music sounds more sinister. The developers managed to re-use the sounds in the original, and modifying them so that those sounds played backwards. When I have a lot of my sound clips played backwards, they sounded sinister to me. I think that this is what JAM was trying to achieve with the enemies. If you want to know whatever happened to Goldfire, then you should play this game.

The Good
What's there not to like about this game! Seriously, if you liked Aliens of Gold, then you're gonna want to witness the dramatic conclusion of the saga! Is it really worth it!? Well...I thought it was!

The Bad
Some may think that since it's not much different than the original that there's nothing to see here, but it certainly didn't hurt Doom II that it was so similar to the original Doom, so there's really nothing not to like about the game. Seriously! (^_^) My only regret is that many of the "new" weapons, with the exception of the Anti-Plasma Cannon and Fission Detonator, are replicas of the weapons from Aliens of Gold, but with newer, darker designs. The game itself in slightly darker in tone than its predecessor, but it doesn't seem to detract from the series in the slightest, and that as we say is that!

The Bottom Line
If you've played the first Blake Stone game - Aliens of Gold - then you know pretty much how this game works. In the vein of Doom II or Wolfenstein: Spear of Destiny, this just takes what's tried and true in the first game and mixes in the old with the new to create an explosively fun game!

There are a few new things to note from the previous game, however. First, the game is slightly darker in tone and color than its predecessor (perhaps taking a cue from the infamous Doom series), but it hardly detracts from the experience. Weapons, while different on the outside, serve the exact same purpose. The only exceptions are the new Anti-Plasma Cannon, which is pretty much just a Plasma Discharge Unit on steroids, and a Fission Detonator which is used to clear the level. Those of you who played the first game will also notice that the subscreen map has been replace by a trailing map on the screen HUD. Other than that, it's exactly the same. Good and evil scientists - check! Dr. Goldfire - check! Vending machines - check! Music by Bobby Prince - double-check! Uber-powered bosses - triple-check! You're in the running for one heck of a fun ride!