Blast! Entertainment
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| This article was copied (instead of imported) from the now-deleted Crappy Games Wiki from the Wayback Machine. |
| Blast! Entertainment | ||||||||||||||||
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 This game publisher is not a Blast!
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Blast! Entertainment Ltd. was a joint venture between the Mastertronic Group and Disky Communications. The label was widely known for releasing licensed games based on movies, television shows and books. The games were commonly released for the PlayStation 2, and occasionally for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo DS, Wii and PlayStation Portable.
List of video games
| Game | Year | Developer | Platforms |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jumanji | 2006 | Atomic Planet Entertainment | PlayStation 2 |
| Dr. Dolittle | Aqua Pacific | ||
| Home Alone | Coyote Developments | ||
| Babe | Aqua Pacific | ||
| Beverly Hills Cop | Atomic Planet Entertainment | ||
| Xena: Warrior Princess | Extra Mile Studios | ||
| Captain Scarlet | Brain in a Jar | ||
| The Flintstones: Bedrock Racing | Coyote Developments | ||
| AMF Xtreme Bowling 2006 | Atomic Planet Entertainment | PlayStation 2, Xbox | |
| Thomas & Friends: A Day at the Races | 2007 | Broadsword Interactive | PlayStation 2 |
| Lassie | Extra Mile Studios | ||
| An American Tail | Data Design Interactive | ||
| Little Britain: The Video Game | Gamerholix, Gamesauce, Runestone Games (mobile) | Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, mobile | |
| Garfield: Lasagna World Tour | EKO Software | PlayStation 2, Microsoft Windows | |
| Casper and the Ghostly Trio | Data Design Interactive | PlayStation 2 | |
| Johnny Bravo in the Hukka-Mega-Mighty-Ultra-Extreme Date-O-Rama! | Extra Mile Studios | PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS | |
| Mr. Bean | Beyond Reality Games | PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS, Wii, Microsoft Windows | |
| Top Gun | Atomic Planet Entertainment | PlayStation 2 | |
| Charlotte's Web[2] | |||
| Thunderbirds | Beyond Reality Games, Coyote Developments | ||
| The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep | Atomic Planet Entertainment | Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS | |
| National Geographic: Safari Adventures Africa | Neko Entertainment | PlayStation 2, Microsoft Windows, Wii, Nintendo DS | |
| Wacky Races: Mad Motors | Coyote Developments | PlayStation 2 | |
| Paddington Bear | Atomic Planet Entertainment | ||
| Action Man A.T.O.M. | Brain in a Jar | ||
| Bob the Builder | Atomic Planet Entertainment | ||
| Bob the Builder: Festival of Fun | Atomic Planet Entertainment, Halch (Wii) | PlayStation 2, Wii, Nintendo DS | |
| Casper's Scare School | 2008 | Data Design Interactive (PS2), Nikitova Games (DS) | PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS |
| Jetix: Puzzle Buzzle | Broadsword Interactive | ||
| Postman Pat | The Code Monkeys | ||
| Casper's Scare School: Spooky Sports Day | 2009 | Nintendo DS, Wii, iOS |
Why They and Their Games Weren't A Blast
Overall
- They have cooperated with many developers with the games in their portfolio that have been negatively received, both critical and commercial. The most notable examples such as:
- Atomic Planet Entertainment: They were notable for creating many budget games, for example first-person shooters that are heavily panned by players, such as S.O.E.: Operation Avalanche and Chronicles of a Vampire Hunter. They were distinguished by their complete lack of talent when it comes to creating stealth missions in the aforementioned games that were extremely difficult to complete.
- Data Design Interactive: One of the most noticeable examples of how to create and release shovelware games, further contributing to the creation of games that look the same since the Ninjabread Man times, due to the GODS Engine, where only what is changed are characters, location, cover art, the graphics in the main menu, and the title of the game, while the rest remain almost the same. They collaborated with Blast! to create three similar games that differ in the aspects mentioned earlier.
- The Code Monkeys: The collaboration between them began a year before Blast! went out of business, creating only two games that were released by Blast!, such as Postman Pat and Casper's Scare School: Spooky Sports Day. What sets them apart are they are known for creating extremely low quality games from the early 2000s to the end of their business, such as Shrek: Treasure Hunt, The Simpsons Skateboarding, and Garfield. However, ever since the debut of Phoenix Games, they had the audacity to create multiple titles that consisted of one short film by Dingo Pictures and several mini-games.
- Broadsword Interactive: For the next time in a row, the development studio from the United Kingdom, who has such games as Spirit of Speed 1937, where the Dreamcast version was critically panned by critics, alongside with a stealth adventure game, Robin Hood's Quest.
- Coyote Developments and Beyond Reality Games: Two British developers who have more than once jointly developed games, whether published by Blast! or other publishers. Notable examples are Agent Hugo: Lemoon Twist and some Blast! games, such as Thunderbirds and Wacky Races: Mad Motors.
- Extra Mile Studios: The development team who is remembered for all the wrong reasons, especially for being involved in the development of a very cynical Smarties candy-licensed game, Smarties: Meltdown, which is considered as one of the worst PlayStation 2 games, and it was never released outside of Europe. They created three games for Blast!, including Xena: Warrior Princess, Lassie and Johnny Bravo: Date-O-Rama!.
- There is a certain probability that Blast! was a racist company, or they utterly hated Eddie Murphy. A notable example of this cynical approach is seen in their two games:
- Beverly Hills Cop: Although Eddie Murphy played the role of Axel Foley in the original source material, the playable character's appearance and skin color have been completely changed from well-known Afro-American to random white man.
- Dr. Dolittle: The cover suggests that the game is based on a film based on the book, which stood out in a completely different appearance from a plump white man to Eddie Murphy. However, the game itself shows that it is actually based on the book, suggesting the appearance of a main character taken from the book, but the cover of the game can confuse anyone that the game will be based on the movie, as suggested by the same font, animals and background, just an excerpt from Eddie's appearance has been cut out so that you can't see no skin of him.
- Blast! printed their games on a CD (Compact Disc) instead of a DVD (Digital Video Disc), which resulted in a few cases caused by the file size of CD-ROM:
- The games suffered enormously from lack of content, in fact many of their games only take up 30-50% of the disc, which is a waste of a CD since they can hold up to 700MB.
- The cutscenes were mostly limited to parts of the series/movie or in the form of slides. The number and duration of cutscenes were also limited for the reason mentioned in the main pointer.
- Low quality of the video and audio.
- They tended to publish games that look the same, in other words, they released a lot of reskins.
- Jetix Puzzle Buzzle reskins Egg Mania: Eggstreme Madness.
- Mr. Bean reskins Agent Hugo: Lemoon Twist.
- Data Design Interactive-developed games, such as Casper and the Ghostly Trio, Casper's Scare School: Classroom Capers, and An American Tail are reskins of Ninjabread Man.
- Action Man A.T.O.M. reskins Captain Scarlet.
- Dr. Dolittle reskins Car Wash Tycoon.
- Wacky Races: Mad Motors reskins The Flintstones: Bedrock Racing.
- They used a couple of licenses that existed for decades before the games, such as Beverly Hills Cop, where the first movie was released 22 years before the PlayStation 2 game, and Home Alone, where the first film came out 16 years earlier than the game, making both games being commercial failures, due to a lack of interest in something that existed many years ago.
- Since PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 debuted, Blast! never released any their game on these platforms, focusing only on those that are weaker than competitors like the Wii, or outdated like PlayStation 2, where one of them was dying out of popularity due to new hardware, especially outside of PAL regions. The reason may be that for them the cost of production could be too high and it was easier to release on weaker or older hardware, with less chance of bankruptcy, and in Europe not everyone had enough money to buy a new console.
- No pre-release quality control of their games whatsoever, especially for Little Britain: The Video Game. From what can be deduced, their games are aimed at children, that is, for the audience who are not aware of how a good game should look and work. This tactic is commonly used by shovelware game developers and/or publishers. The conclusion is that Blast! has not released a single correct game, and in the worst case it was a first-class rot, which makes their logo can be considered as a sign of the low quality of the game.
- Their cover arts are made at least line of resistance, especially for games like Little Britain, The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep, and Beverly Hills Cop, where movie/TV series posters were used for the three previously mentioned games.
- They cause many false advertisements with the worst offenders being Mr. Bean and Home Alone. In the first case, they lie about the number of collectibles, in the second case, the title of the game causes confusion, because you not only control Kevin, who is the only one of the family, but also offers three other playable characters, although one of the three is a variation of Kevin.
Games
- Poor grasp of the original source material at all. Their games have little to do with the franchises/series they are based on, especially Home Alone.
- Extremely outdated and undetailed graphics, which usually brings to mind the times of the first PlayStation, and in the worst case of the Atari Jaguar. Examples of products where the graphic rubbish was the most noticeable include ThunderBirds, Charlotte's Web, Jumanji, and Little Britain.
- Generally uninspiring, boring, and repetitive gameplay, which would be more relevant for cell phone games than console games. A perfect example are both Bob the Builder games, Postman Pat and Jumanji.
- Camera angles are usually annoying and completely inaccurate, especially as seen in Data Design Interactive games. In some situations, they lead to situations where you cannot see what will happen on the other side.
- Bad controls, especially in games when you are driving a vehicle and in Charlotte's Web. On the one hand, they are delayed, another time there are tank controls.
- Some games have quite unnecessary and silly mechanics, for example in Xena: Warrior Princess, where you absolutely have to complete the game in less than an hour before the water fills up where one character has been trapped and needs to be rescued.
- There is almost no storyline. On the one hand, they are told in the form of short scenes, which later do not relate to what can be seen in the gameplay, other times there is virtually no plot, which can be deduced from their party games like Jumanji and Little Britain.
- Lots of boring, stupid, and completely embarrassing mini-games. For example, in Little Britain there is a mini-game in which on the one hand it is an ordinary clone of Columns, but in the next moment the concept changes to vomit people as much as possible. On the other hand, the mini-games are just plain boring, which is evident in Jumanji.
- Cheesy and horribly stiff animations, especially those paralytic character movements.
- The soundtrack and sound effects leave a lot to be desired. Often accompanied by cringe-worthy sound effects, including music, at worst, comparable to cacophony.
- The length of the games is the tip of the iceberg from the overall cruft of Blast! games. The length of the games is usually from 15 minutes to half an hour.
- There are some bugs and glitches, for example in Charlotte's Web, The Water Horse, and/or Beverly Hills Cop, opponents get stuck in place, spinning like laundry in a washing machine.
- Almost non-existent artificial intelligence, where in some games it was replaced with even hopeless scripts that function worse than the average monkeys under the trepanation of the skull.
Videos
Zagrajmy w crapa episodes
The Worst Games You've Never Played episodes
Various videos
References
- ↑ GamesIndustry.biz: "Mastertronic blast off"
- ↑ Blast! published the PlayStation 2 counterpart. The original game adaptation was developed by Backbone Entertainment and published by Sega for the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, and Microsoft Windows.
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