And what about Blast Wind?

[bargora]

Since I'm in the "B" section of Saturn import shooters this week, well, how is Blast Wind? It seems to be not too well known. Shmups Mk2 gives it a one sentence review, pronouncing it to be mediocre.

It's popped up twice this week on the bay, after not appearing in the previous two months. I let the first one get away with a BIN of $33.25 delivered. I just don't know whether to throw down a bid. It's opening at $19.99.

[ROBOTRON]

Never heard of this one...what is it like? :eek:

[bargora]

Well, I guess it's not too common, as nobody had anything to say about it. So I went ahead and got a copy. It's a vert scroller from Technosoft, and I've only put two credits into it so far, so I don't have much to say yet. I'm up to my neck in shmups (e.g., Mars Matrix is 0wning me right now, also, trying to find the end of Xevious), which isn't a bad thing; when I get a few levels in to it I'll post back here.

Oh, yeah--I went back to Shmups Mk2 and saw that they weren't the ones who weren't impressed with Blast Wind. Now that I think about it, it might have been Starbase 299. Which now seems to have disappeared off the face of the web. Did anybody else here ever visit Starbase 299 when it was a going concern? There was a pretty good database there of shmup info and reviews.

[ROBOTRON]

Hmmm....Technosoft makes good shooters (Thunderforce series). Perhaps I'd better look into Blast Wind.

[bargora]

The Shmups Mk2 "Xenocide files" section at http://www.classicgaming.com/shmups/index2.htm has this to say about Blast Wind: "Rare vertscroller with some split path gameplay. very manic and typical Technosoft..."

I will say that the graphics aren't the prettiest the Saturn has to offer, but then I doubt that there are many graphics whores perusing these boards. Although I thought it was interesting that in the "meet the pilots" intro sequence the first shot you see of the female pilot (player 2 ship) is a strictly neck-to-midriff bust shot. Being that it's all in Japanese, however, I can't say that it's not really important to the plot.

Now I'm going to have to go home and invest an hour seeing how it really plays.

[Dire 51]

I've been wondering what happened to Starbase 299 myself. I still have Ghostwalker's email address (I think) - I'll have to dig it up and fire off a message to him.