Much like fashion and automobiles, gaming is a magnet for trends. Occasionally ridiculous, and always sweeping, it’s easy to lose the innovators in an angry sea of crap. Light guns, motion sensing, voice chat, hard drives, and more currently the wars over guitar-shaped controllers and the media format itself. But this is just hardware.
The software fad of the hour is the destructible environment. Not the casually absurd, shooting gallery brand that has you blasting apart the Eiffel Tower, but something a little more daunting.
Developers are hyping buildings that can be reduced to scrap piece by piece, terrain that can be reshaped on a whim, and for the lil’ engineer, worlds so detailed the in-game structures must be architecturally sound to stay upright.
Sounds great if you want to wait a few months and take a nighttime refresher course in physics at Hollywood High, but if you want stuff to “blow up real good” RIGHT NOW, track down a copy of Majesco’s Phantom Dust. Moderately successful in Japan and dumped on our shores for $19.99, it was a deal then, and it’s a giveaway now.
Phantom Dust is hard to categorize. Full of action, based in strategy, and infused with a convoluted storyline that is ambiguous at best, “huh?” at worst, it’s hard-to-play, harder-to-master. At the start the arena-based fighting feels cramped, and the enemies overpowered. Make a small investment to learn the ins, outs, and what-have-you’s of the combat, and you will literally tear the levels apart.
Before battle, players create a roster of techniques (300 or so unlockable throughout the game). Once it’s on, baddies give you about five seconds to scramble for your first power-up before homing missiles of psychic energy start shattering the ground you’re running on, but it’s a two-way street. I’ve won battles burying opponents in rubble, I’ve routed at the last moment blowing holes underneath them, casting them into a swirling abyss. I’ve sent them tumbling through solid concrete pillars in a shower of dust and shrapnel. How did anyone not play this?
The alien control scheme might have something to do with it. Powers are mapped to face buttons, and are interchangeable on the fly, and some evil bastards can hack your load out, shutting you down or erasing powers entirely. The combat is also its own reward, as the story is obscure and slow to unfold. Budding designers should take note: having both the protagonist and the antagonist suffer amnesia holds up the narrative just a tad.
If you feel like opening your mind to a post-apocalyptic, action strategy…card(like) fighter, it’s there for a song, and the commitment it demands is well worth it. Not only is there a cult following that still plays online, but the game is supported on the Xbox 360, so break out that penny jar and start throwin’ some mind bullets.
Phantom Dust can be found on ebay, amazon, and wherever (most) used games are sold.
Cover art courtesy of wikipedia.
Screenshot courtesy of the official site.
Subscribe to our RSS Feed And checkout our coffee competition to win a $30 gift voucher to your favourite coffee shop : click here
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...
0 responses so far ↓
Subscribe to our RSS Feed and leave a comment to enter the commentator of the week competition and win a $20 Amazon.com gift voucher.
Leave a Comment