Old school glory all the way from the day when games were hard !!

User Rating: 9.5 | Blaster Master NES
Let's be honest...games are easy these days . You can set the difficulty, save anywhere anytime ( in most games ) . But in the days of the NES , there were games that were unforgiving on all accounts, and Blaster Master was the king of 'em . In my opinion one of the most difficult games of all time , but also one of the most rewarding . The story was so crappy, I won't even mention here . The gameplay was a bit Metroid style . You drive a hypermodern tank around in giant platform-based levels (8 of 'em), destroying a giant boss creature in each of them to aquire an upgrade that will let you reach previous inaccesible areas . The levels are woven through each other so it's a little search to find your next target once you've destroyed the boss in a level . Upgrades include better weapons , a hover power-up (fly baby) , a propellor that will morph your tank in a submarine and wall climbing abilities . The levels themself are mazes were you have to search for entrances too small for your tank to enter . There , you must leave your tank and haste your tiny character into the gate . Once inside, the view changes to an overhead perspective (Zelda style), and you have to search through the maze to the location of the boss , hoping that you have entered the correct gate , because only one entrance leads to the boss , and the others are dead ends . The bosses are extremely big and fill the entire screen . They also become ridiculously difficult as you progress through the game .
The graphics were good for those days , and each level had its own setting , both exterior (in the tank) and interior (with the boy) . The bosses were cool (the background became black during a boss fight -I guess to reduce slowdown) and the tank was nicely animated . The sound effects were very good and each level had its own catchy tune . Did I mention this game was HARD ? 3 lives, 3 continues, game over . No extra lives, no cheats . Can't count the times when I threw the controller to the telly when the game over screen appeared in level 6 or so after 7 hours playing . But still, this game had a magical replay value, and the next day, you started all over again from level 1 .
Conclusion ? Blaster Master was a true gem in it's days . It had all ingredients to make a great game (exept the storyline and a little slowdown) . Good graphics, a cool vehicle , lots of great gameplay hours , cool bosses with the "what's the weak spot of this one" syndrome and big levels that in combination with the high dificulty asured a long and rewarding gaming experience . Top notch !! Collectors all over the world , add this to your game library !!