Review Mazinkaiser 4/5 · Oct 22, 2019
Blue Stinger: Fun On the Holidays
Blue Stinger looks a little rough on the surface, but this campy adventure is too creative and fun to let its flaws bring people down. Taking place on a mysterious Dinosaur island where a meteor has produced a bunch of evil mutant creatures, you control both a basic young man and a sea captain as you discover the mystery behind …
Blue Stinger looks a little rough on the surface, but this campy adventure is too creative and fun to let its flaws bring people down. Taking place on a mysterious Dinosaur island where a meteor has produced a bunch of evil mutant creatures, you control both a basic young man and a sea captain as you discover the mystery behind the meteor and stop the [spoilers]! The plot twists and turns into sheer silliness, but never stops being genuinely entertaining.
The gameplay is fairly straightforward in terms of survival horror at first - there are a variety of melee weapons from baseball bats to ray swords to magic T-shirts that imbue wrestling and karate abilities, the latter of which actually creates an interesting way to play two different types of game modes between two characters. The guns pack power and are usually stocked with vending machines. Thanks to a lot of money being prevalent in the game (and secret bank cards), the player won't be too stressed about finding supplies.
The biggest flaw we have to get out of the way is the camera, which was implemented instead of a fixed camera system. This provides a little more depth to surroundings but can get caught in some strange places. It's not a dealbreaker but it can create some weird unintended perspectives.
As for setpieces, the game is unapologetic about its silliness. Most of the island is devoted to the Christmas season, with ads abound for a fictional soda, a stamp collecting marathon, holiday parties, an infectious holiday theme, and much more. This is balanced by more straightforward labs and power plants, but provides a lot of different places to go in the 5-7 hour runtime of the game and such unforgettable moments as slowly mutating to help get through a level and taking a bath in the middle of a battlefield.
Blue Stinger is a survival horror game that isn't afraid to be a little crazier and a little weirder with its material and ends up better than the sum of its parts. The game offers some options to switch things up a bit and doesn't slow down with ridiculous plot points and memorable locations.