Skip navigation.

#

#

### Blast Arena Advance [GBA]

#### http://www.mrdictionary.net/blastarenacart/

#### Reviewed By Dudley

At the risk of editorialising, there's something I've always thought that Nintendo understood about handheld gaming that virtually no-one who has tried to enter the arena has ever quite caught on to. The PSP's library largely consists of PS2 style games (only smaller), whereas the DS has a library full of *real* handheld style games. There's an art to writing a good handheld game, it should be clear, it should be playable on a screen as small as a couple of inches and it should be possible to enjoy it when you only have five minutes to spare. A decent proportion of the PSP library won't even load in that time, let alone award you with any quality game-play.

I bring this up because if there's one game I've ever played in my life that epitomises the well executed handheld experience it's this one. Blast Arena goes from power on to game in about 15 seconds, a typical game is going to be around a minute, it's never difficult to know exactly what's going on and with the high score saving there's always a goal to achieve. Even better if you act while they're still available you can have your very own cart in your hand for £5.50, a perfect handheld game price to boot.

So to backtrack a little, the object of Blast Arena is really very simple. By moving your cursor freely around a single screen play area you simply have to collect the yellow squares (flanges) which appear regularly. Whilst doing so, you have to avoid the cluster bombs that appear randomly across the playing field, explode, and scatter bullets in eight directions. That's it, the game mechanics in their entirety - the only other thing even on screen is a waveform based on the music, but this can be disabled (some players may find it distracting).

Ah yes, the music. You can't quite credit the author for it, as it's borrowed from 90's Amiga game 'Pinball Illusions' (menu and credits music comes from a couple of other Amiga titles). That said, you'd never notice since it suits the game absolutely perfectly and the music player used produces an incredibly rich and immersive playback through my DS lite. The appearance of the first bombs, and some of the others, is synced to the music and it helps the immersion immensely. It turns this game from a playable curiosity into a true experience.

If I may raise a small downside, the controls just occasionally let the game down. While in most situations the quick, smooth movement of your ship is beneficial and incredibly well executed, it occasionally appears over sensitive and when making small movements it is annoyingly easy to overshoot, often into the path of an oncoming bullet. Learning to avoid this almost turns the game into a little more of a strategic experience as picking your moments to make a run across the screen become ever more important. (*Ahem* - if you read the instructions Dudley, you'll see that the 'A' button makes you move faster whereas the 'B' button can be used to slow you down. So there you go, problem solved! - JM)

A version on a bigger machine with analogue controls would probably be a lot of fun, but it would also lose a lot of the charm and this is certainly a game that is happiest in portable form. Squeezing it into a big console would be as much of a mistake as trying to make a full size PS2 game work on a handheld.

Blast Arena could well be the perfect handheld game, and while I only spend five minutes on it at a time, I can see myself spending those five minutes at least once a week for the rest of my life. For the considerably less a tenner it cost me it probably qualifies as bargain of the millennium. With no more than about 200 copies available on cart in the world, any self respecting GBA, SP, Micro or DS owner needs to get themselves one of these.

##

Out of all the GBA games in my collection, Blast Arena Advance is by far my favourite. It's basic premise and commercial quality production make it really stand out from other homebrew titles, and I'm actually quite surprised that no-one actually licensed this release - as Dudley stated above, it really is the perfect handheld game.

In addition to the above review, it's worth noting that the credits screen contains a nifty little conversion of the classic snake game, and each time you succeed in collecting all of the glowing orbs (thus spelling out 'Blast Arena') you'll unlock one of seven secret cheat modes that radically change the way that Blast Arena Advance plays. Genius!

J. Monkman.

###

Graphics: | 90%
Sound: | 96%
Game Concept: | 95%
Gameplay: | 89%
Lasting Appeal: | 95%

###

##

Q1. As way of introduction, please could you give a brief paragraph or two about yourself?

My name is Mathew Carr, I live in rainy, rainy England, and I like cats.

I first started programming simple stuff in BASIC on my brothers' Spectrum +2, moved onto AMOS and Blitz Basic on the Amiga, and then eventually got into 'real' programming on the PC.

Q2. What was the main inspiration behind Blast Arena Advance?

Blast Arena is the brainchild of Carpets, a good friend of mine. Because of the range of techniques used within his game engine, I sometimes like to try and recreate Blast Arena as a sort of milestone when I try a new format to test out what I've learned. (That was the inspiration behind 'Javarena'). After I found my way around GBA development somewhat, I decided to try and remake one of the many different versions of Blast Arena as a test. When the game engine was ready, I started adding different features such as the high score system and the credits game until the game felt more complete. When the game was nearly complete, I heard of a coding competition that was accepting entries, so I added some final touches to the game, tested the hell out of it, and sent it in.

Q3. What development tools and hardware set-up were used to create Blast Arena Advance and could you briefly describe the development process?

On the PC side, I use the fantastic 'devkitPro' development toolset together with 'ConTEXT Programmers' Editor'.

To manage and convert graphics, I use a groovy sprite editor and graphics converter called Usenti, by Cearn. (Cearn also wrote a guide to GBA programming, 'TONC', which is an absolutely excellent resource.)

To test code on the GBA, I use a EZF-Advance GBA flashcart (a rewritable GBA cartridge), an awesome bit of kit.

Q4. Did this set-up differ greatly in the development of your more recent Lemmings port for the DS? Out of the two handhelds, which is your preferred platform (from a coder's perspective?)

Surprisingly, no. For the most part, the GBA and DS are very similar; for example, they both feature a core set of simple but powerful sprite and tile-based graphics modes. One could use these modes to create a basic side-scrolling platform game engine on both the GBA and the DS in C with very little code difference on the two systems.

The DS has a lot more RAM to play around with, so it's considerably easier to manage large amounts of data without more involved programming techniques. For example, a Lemmings DS level is 1600 pixels across by 168 pixels down. In the data format I use (one byte per pixel) this takes up 262.5 kBytes, which would almost completely fill the ram of the GBA.

Q5. Have you received any contact from Nintendo regarding your unofficial cart project? Did you ever consider approaching a publisher with the game?

Nope, haven't heard a thing from Nintendo.

I didn't consider approaching a publisher with the game; I doubt they'd be interested in a simple game like Blast Arena Advance. (There's also a number of other issues involved, such as the licensing of the audio system used.)

Q6. Will we ever see a DS enhanced version of Blast Arena in the future?

We'll see... don't rule it out! Why don't you ask Carpets?

Q7. With the GBA no longer commercially viable for publishers and the DS taking hold of the market, do you think that it's the end of the road for the once thriving GBA homebrew scene? Do you have any plans for future GBA projects?

I don't think that the GBA 'scene' will disappear because of the DS' influence. If that were the case, then the 'scene' should be completely gone already.

Given the similarities between the two, it's easy for folks familiar with one system to begin coding for the other. Currently, it's considerably easier to source affordable GBA cartridges than it is to source DS Game Paks, so if someone wanted to release their own homebrew game on a series of cartridges, it would make sense to consider the GBA.

GBA systems and flash devices are becoming cheaper by the week, it's rapidly becoming a very inexpensive way to try something new. (Not forgetting that one doesn't need to buy anything at all to begin coding for the GBA or DS: all you need to start is 'devkitPro' and a good GBA emulator.)

Q8. Returning to your more recent release, have you considered creating a port of Lemmings 2 for the DS? Would this be possible using the current engine (with minor alterations) or would it require a complete rewrite?

Even though it -could- be possible with the existing engine, a complete rewrite would definitely be the better choice. However, it almost definitely won't be me who does it. It would be incredibly time consuming to try and recreate every skill from Lemmings 2 without decent documentation and every sprite pre-prepared.

Q9. With regard to the homebrew and remakes scene, are their any recent releases that have captured your attention?

I thought that Cyril "Foxy" Cogordan's GBA port of Eric Chahi's 'Another World' was excellent. On the DS, there's loads of interesting projects in development, such as 'Colors!', 'Moonshell', 'DSOrganise', 'Beup' and 'NitroTracker'... not to mention the awesome work that's gone into making all homebrew possible on all the consoles.

Q10. Thank you for participating in this interview. Is there anything else you'd like to add before signing off?

If you enjoy homebrew games and utilities, consider sending a message of thanks to the marvelous folks who make it all possible!

Don't forget to try my Nintendo DS port of Lemmings at lemmings.mrdictionary.net!