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IGN Review of Point Blank DS
As an April Fool's gag last year, I joked that Nintendo would be publishing touch screen versions of its light gun games such as Duck Hunt and Hogan's Alley. Obviously those never came to pass (not yet, anyway), but the whole idea of light gun games on the Nintendo DS certainly appealed to Namco as the company has produced a rendition of its Point Blank series that responds to taps on the screen instead of blasts from a gun. It may sound like a silly and ridiculous concept, especially as it removes the coolness of a weapon from the gameplay equation - but in practice the game actually works. It's a little shallow in places but the overall concept and execution is a sound one on the Nintendo DS, and - forgive the pun - really deserves a shot.
The original Point Blank concept was a fun and frantic series of arcade games (as well as PlayStation conversions) that challenged players to blast away their lightgun at a series of quick-shot challenges that ranged from the standard Hogan's Alley-accuracy test of blasting cardboard cutout bad guys, to the delightfully absurd like shooting a single solitary fly in a living room…as well as anything in between. The game focused on rapid fire control as well as pin-point accuracy, but it was mostly weighted towards the player's sheer quickness with the trigger, since the arcade usually housed the television display two inches from the player. Being right up against the glass didn't really work to the player's advantage since it was more about speed shooting.
That said, imagine that game without the gun and instead being able to touch the targets, and that's exactly what Point Blank DS is. The dual-screen rendition takes a selection of forty different challenges from Point Blank, Point Blank 2, and Point Blank 3 and reproduces them pretty spot-on for the handheld - which, honestly, isn't that hard to do considering the original three games didn't push a lot of 3D elements. Most of the games featured stylized 2D sprites flying around a still screen, which is totally up the Nintendo DS system's alley. On occasion there will be a few mini-games that push some basic 3D elements, like a giant spinning target that gets knocked around when blasted, but mostly this is just a 2D affair. Yes, the Nintendo DS has the right stuff - it has the technical prowess to reproduce the mini-games, and the control to "emulate" a light gun way better than, say, the usual non-gun alternative: an on-screen cursor moved around by a thumb controller.
Believe it or not, the game doesn't lose a whole lot in the translation, and even removing the aim-and-fire control out of the equation Point Blank still retains some serious challenge because of its rapid pace. The easy levels are, admittedly, really easy - levels requiring players to tap away at the screen "blasting" a set number of quick-moving chickens, or ninjas, or bulls-eyes before time runs out. There are some that require a bit more thought, like zapping the analog clock that represents the digital time, or shooting the highest value playing card out of a stack of five displayed. The difficulty ramps up in the hard and Insane levels, requiring an enormous amount of touch-screen precision and reaction time to get through them without losing a credit. Even with the accuracy of the stylus, the collision sensitivity requires spot-on tapping…it's not very forgiving, so you'll have to really nail that center point if you want it to register a hit.
But there's something about wielding a weapon that makes Point Blank a fun game, and a stylus tap just doesn't give as much satisfaction as a trigger pull, even if they result in the same on-screen reaction. So in that sense the DS version will never have the same "cool factor" as the original arcade and PlayStation game.
Namco clearly knew that a straightforward lightgun port wouldn't really fly on the handheld, and perhaps the company wanted to jump on the Brain Training bandwagon, because Point Blank DS offers up an additional mode beyond the standard Arcade option that challenges players with eight different ways to improve their "brain power" using the forty different gun challenges. Like Nintendo's games, Point Blank DS isn't very scientific in its measurements - it calculates tap speed, accuracy, how many good shots and bad shots and misses players pull off in each of the four games, and grades you with a rank and an "occupation." Point Blank's hook is that players can "collect" the different occupations, from Superfly Chess Nerd to Stylish Comic Artist. Once a player's awarded an occupation, it's unlocked in the huge list of 100 question marks. It's a nice incentive to shoot for. This "Brain Massage" mode is a neat way of presenting the game levels in a different way, even if it feels like it's capitalizing on a successful DS trend.
One of the cooler elements of the original console and arcade Point Blank games was its two player VS. competition, and that's still the case with Point Blank DS. Namco Bandai has created a mode that utilizes the Nintendo DS system's single cartridge Download Play for head-to-head play - it's a little slow on the loading, but if you can stand the download times between each level the gameplay that pops up can get enormously challenging. It's seamless, too - you can see the blasts from the other player's gun appear up on your screen, so there's clearly no lag within the wireless connection. The only oddity is that you don't see the other player's score until it finishes calculating it outside of each level - just a little awkward since you can always see your opponent's points thanks to the fact that you're playing on the same screen.
©2006-06-09, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
The original Point Blank concept was a fun and frantic series of arcade games (as well as PlayStation conversions) that challenged players to blast away their lightgun at a series of quick-shot challenges that ranged from the standard Hogan's Alley-accuracy test of blasting cardboard cutout bad guys, to the delightfully absurd like shooting a single solitary fly in a living room…as well as anything in between. The game focused on rapid fire control as well as pin-point accuracy, but it was mostly weighted towards the player's sheer quickness with the trigger, since the arcade usually housed the television display two inches from the player. Being right up against the glass didn't really work to the player's advantage since it was more about speed shooting.
That said, imagine that game without the gun and instead being able to touch the targets, and that's exactly what Point Blank DS is. The dual-screen rendition takes a selection of forty different challenges from Point Blank, Point Blank 2, and Point Blank 3 and reproduces them pretty spot-on for the handheld - which, honestly, isn't that hard to do considering the original three games didn't push a lot of 3D elements. Most of the games featured stylized 2D sprites flying around a still screen, which is totally up the Nintendo DS system's alley. On occasion there will be a few mini-games that push some basic 3D elements, like a giant spinning target that gets knocked around when blasted, but mostly this is just a 2D affair. Yes, the Nintendo DS has the right stuff - it has the technical prowess to reproduce the mini-games, and the control to "emulate" a light gun way better than, say, the usual non-gun alternative: an on-screen cursor moved around by a thumb controller.
Believe it or not, the game doesn't lose a whole lot in the translation, and even removing the aim-and-fire control out of the equation Point Blank still retains some serious challenge because of its rapid pace. The easy levels are, admittedly, really easy - levels requiring players to tap away at the screen "blasting" a set number of quick-moving chickens, or ninjas, or bulls-eyes before time runs out. There are some that require a bit more thought, like zapping the analog clock that represents the digital time, or shooting the highest value playing card out of a stack of five displayed. The difficulty ramps up in the hard and Insane levels, requiring an enormous amount of touch-screen precision and reaction time to get through them without losing a credit. Even with the accuracy of the stylus, the collision sensitivity requires spot-on tapping…it's not very forgiving, so you'll have to really nail that center point if you want it to register a hit.
But there's something about wielding a weapon that makes Point Blank a fun game, and a stylus tap just doesn't give as much satisfaction as a trigger pull, even if they result in the same on-screen reaction. So in that sense the DS version will never have the same "cool factor" as the original arcade and PlayStation game.
Namco clearly knew that a straightforward lightgun port wouldn't really fly on the handheld, and perhaps the company wanted to jump on the Brain Training bandwagon, because Point Blank DS offers up an additional mode beyond the standard Arcade option that challenges players with eight different ways to improve their "brain power" using the forty different gun challenges. Like Nintendo's games, Point Blank DS isn't very scientific in its measurements - it calculates tap speed, accuracy, how many good shots and bad shots and misses players pull off in each of the four games, and grades you with a rank and an "occupation." Point Blank's hook is that players can "collect" the different occupations, from Superfly Chess Nerd to Stylish Comic Artist. Once a player's awarded an occupation, it's unlocked in the huge list of 100 question marks. It's a nice incentive to shoot for. This "Brain Massage" mode is a neat way of presenting the game levels in a different way, even if it feels like it's capitalizing on a successful DS trend.
One of the cooler elements of the original console and arcade Point Blank games was its two player VS. competition, and that's still the case with Point Blank DS. Namco Bandai has created a mode that utilizes the Nintendo DS system's single cartridge Download Play for head-to-head play - it's a little slow on the loading, but if you can stand the download times between each level the gameplay that pops up can get enormously challenging. It's seamless, too - you can see the blasts from the other player's gun appear up on your screen, so there's clearly no lag within the wireless connection. The only oddity is that you don't see the other player's score until it finishes calculating it outside of each level - just a little awkward since you can always see your opponent's points thanks to the fact that you're playing on the same screen.
©2006-06-09, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved