Review: Tri Blaster

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tri blaster (1)

Pew pew pew RETRO STYLE! Shoot enemies, survive, gain lives and achieve the highest scores possible all in an old school vector style game.

tri blaster (2)

Pros:

  • Retro graphics with a slight HD edge to it. The sprites and level themselves do look the business.
  • Old school tunnel shooter game, Destroy enemy ships on pre determined landscapes from tunnels to l shapes to flat lands.
  • Classic arcade influenced sound effects complete with the beeps and boops and explosions.
  • Over 70 levels to blast through.
  • Fast moving game.
  • Average amount of video options like resolution and AA.
  • Collect shards in game from destroying enemies, use these to power up a beam which can destroy everything instantly. Your get out of jail card if you were.
  • Simple controls once you get used to fact that you hold down the left mouse button, and then move by moving the moues left and right. It sounds weird and indeed it feels weird, But it does work! You can use space bar to jump if you need to get away.
  • bonus levels in between sections where you can collect bonus powerups for your beam.
  • Cheap price point.
  • Small file size with it weighing under 100mb.
  • Loads of different enemy types.
  • Unlock shortcuts by hitting milestones, They unlock every 25 levels and are available from the front screen.

tri blaster (5)

Cons:

  • Unskippable opening screens.
  • No pad support despite showing it as available on the pre boot config screen.
  • No real soundtrack once you get in game.
  • No leaderboard support which is a huge mis step.
  • The balancing is a bit off, You can clear the first dozen levels by simply holding down shoot and moving left and right continuously.

tri blaster (4)
In Summary, The game returns to a genre that was famous in the 80s and has seen a re emergence in the last few years. With Minter bringing us Space Giraffe and TXK, The genre still has a huge following and has made many new gamers. This game does the core basics of the genre well, But it  just doesnt do anything to make it memorable or make you want to dedicate any real time to it. The lack of leaderboards is criminal but by todays standard you need a banging soundtrack to increase the fun. So for that I can say its worth a look if its dirt cheap but to be honest there are better shooters out there and offer far more than this title.

Jim Smale

Gaming since the Atari 2600, I enjoy the weirdness in games counting Densha De Go and RC De Go as my favourite titles of all time. I prefer gaming of old where buying games from a shop was a thing, Being social in person was a thing. Join me as I attempt to adapt to this new digital age!