Blast Chamber: An Overlooked PS1 game.
I remember playing the demo for this game when I first got my PlayStation in 1998. I played it quite a bit, but I eventually bought some games, such as Tomb Raider and Jet Moto, and as it goes, once you have full games to play on a new system, demo discs are easily ignored.
I never bought the game then, but in the years after that I've thought back to that demo and how fun it was, but could not remember the name of the game, and it seemed to be the only demo disc of mine that I could not find. After asking around online a couple years back I discovered the name of the game. Blast Chamber.
The game is very fun, even if the graphics are incredibly dated. You are placed inside of a cube that rotates when you hit switches. In the level is a star that needs to be placed into a goal. Each cube is a puzzle that involves turning the cube and passing obstacles and avoiding deathtraps to get the star, and then get it to the goal before time runs out. There are power-ups and power-downs that help or hurt you while you try to accomplish this. And there are many, many cubes, and surprisingly, each one has a very different puzzle to solve. That's just the single-player portion of the game. And its fun.
The multiplayer portion of the game has up to four people facing off in a cube of your choosing. Each player has a goal somewhere on the map, and they have to get the star and make it to their goal before another player interferes and gets the star from them. If another player turns the cube, it means you and any other player falls. This could mean simply falling and having to get back up. This could mean falling and losing the star, or it could mean falling onto spikes or a pit of fire, or who knows what else, and ultimately dying. If you go to long without putting a star in your goal, you explode. Once you run out of lives you are out of the game. Whoever has the most goals and least deaths at the end wins.
It's a great game. Unfortunately anyone who has the game now(me) probably has nobody else to play with them and is stuck to just the single-player puzzles. But even that is satisfying enough for a purchase. Especially at the price I found it for on Ebay.
If Activision released an updated version of this game for current-gen or next-gen consoles, with fancier effects and better graphics, and ofcourse online multiplayer if they are smart. I'd definitely pick it up and play with friends. But that is unlikely, as most people don't know about the original game.
Downsides of the game? The players are not 3-D models and because of this it can be hard to tell how deep into the Cube your character is at times. When you are crunched for time and you think you are in front of a switch, only to find out you are a little passed it, or not close enough to it, it can be a pain. Or could mean death. And playing the multiplayer portion against the PC is pointless. You can't beat it. It follows you perfectly and pushes you over and steals the star too easily.
I do recommend this game. But it's very rare and you will most likely be playing alone and only take advantage of the single-player aspect of it. And because the game is simply you inside of a cube, running around, playing alone can seem a lot more solitary and depressing than other single-player games. Even though I can praise this game, I'm not playing it because after a while I do get that "waste of time" feeling that happens after playing some solitary games, even if I like them.Read full review
