When I was a kid back in the NES days, one of the big game makers was Konami.  They brought us such classics like Castlevania, Contra, and Life Force.  But one of their NES games that didn’t get as much attention was Jackal.  This was an army themed game where you drove around a Jeep in an overhead perspective and shot at bad guys.  I don’t remember playing it much myself, but in recent years I’ve read articles and watched videos of people having fond memories of Jackal.  So I’m glad I got the opportunity to review Blazing Trail, as it reminded me a lot of Jackal.  Drive around an armored vehicle and shoot at bad guys and rescue hostages in this 2D action game.  It’s available for all current consoles and PC, but reviewed on PS4 here.

In the game you drive around an armored vehicle that looks like a cross between a futuristic Jeep and a tank.  You view the action in a 2D isometric perspective.  You can shoot machine guns that fire straight up, or rockets and lasers that you can aim in the same direction that you are driving.  If you destroy certain buildings, hostages will pop out and if you collect them all, you can get a power-up for your weapons.  You can take a few hits from soldiers and cannons, but if you get destroyed it’s Game Over.

I really did not like this game.  It was hard to aim your weapons in the right direction thanks to the isometric perspective.  Your vehicle lumbers around slowly and it’s impossible to avoid getting hit, especially since you’re such a big target.  These problems made the game way too hard and I couldn’t even get past the first level.  You can play two players at the same time and there is also a versus mode, which may be more fun.  Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to try these since I don’t have people around me to play games with me anymore.  I sure hope Jackal was better than this!

Kid Factor:

Blazing Trail is rated T for Teen with ESRB descriptors of Blood and Violence.  I didn’t notice any blood, but you do shoot all sorts of soldiers that fall over when defeated.  Anything else just explodes.  But the best reason why this should be for older gamers is the high difficulty level.

Tags: Game Reviews