Review: Point Blank (NDS)

Gamestyle can’t remember the last time they played Point Blank. Not the arcade perhaps, so it must have been on the PSone, two gen ago. How time flies, eh? Now it’s on the DS, so you know what they means, right? Right?

It means that (rather wisely), Namco haven’t created a gun add-on, as was the peripheral controller for previous versions, and have instead focussed the game for use the touchscreen and touchstick. Gamestyle has memories of trying to play Operation Wolf on the Commodore 64 sans light gun and trying to grapple an Archer joystick one way then the other. It’s not really fun.

Point Blank, however, is, at least that’s what we remember from before. It’s a light gun game without a narrative, and is essentially a series of mini-games, where you have an objective to complete within a time limit. Your tasks will include versions of fairground shooting games, where you have to hit a range of targets, like yellow rubber duckies moving from left to right.

In fact, that is the essence of Point Blank, except not as pedestrian as the description implies.  A flock of sheep cross from right to left, and you have to shear the as many as you can.  Rubber ducks fall down a waterfall towards you.  Skeletons dangle in a cavern.  These kinds of things happen. 

The traditional game is of a series of eight games, and you’ll need to get a high a score as possible to progress to harder levels, where sheep move faster, time limits are stricter and ammo is restricted. Gamestyle is unsure of how more accurate they could actually get without upgrading their retinas like some William Gibson character. There’s also the feeling that some people on the bus may think that an arm has gone into some kind of spasm, DS stick in hand, in an effort to hit all required targets.

A training mode allows an insight into how Point Blank should work. In a way which is more successful in something like Wii Sports, your scores on selected mini games are evaluated and a rating given. You could play it every day and track your scores, if you so wished.

Sadly Gamestyle suspects that not many people have done this. There’s something lacking at the heart of Point Blank DS, and at no point does it fell like a cohesive collection. It feels competent but without the gems of inspirational genius that Wario Ware has, and without the narrative of Time Crisis etc, there is nothing more than a pick up and play title.

This does works perfectly for the DS, in some respects better than House of the Dead would be, yet it just feels like we’re tapping around on something and not gaining much. Gamestyle has pick up, played and put down again, in search of something else to do.

Rating: 5 / 10

Words by Chris Faires