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> Results: Point Blank DS
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Point Blank was a mid-90's arcade game where one or two players shot at digital targets onscreen with a light gun. While most other light gun games focused on war and violence, Point Blank took a more whimsical approach. Players shot at silly skeletons, cartoon octopi, glass ducks, and cardboard cutouts of ninjas. Similar to country fair shooting gallery challenges, you had to shoot a certain amount of targets in a certain time, and sometimes with limited ﾑbullets' as well. Some mini games were more cerebral and required you to shoot at targets in order or match up two of the same targets. Each challenge lasted 30 seconds at the most and provided entertainment in short bursts. Point Blank was popular enough to get a home console port on the Sony PlayStation along with two sequels.
Now you can enjoy the fun of Point Blank on your Nintendo DS. Instead of shooting at objects with a light gun, you tap them on the touch screen with the DS' stylus. It works pretty well. There's a standard Arcade Mode where you select your difficulty level and aim for the high score in an assortment of mini shooting games, or you can practice individual games in Practice Mode. You can even compete with a friend through wireless, single cartridge play. There are DS video versions of other classic Namco shooting games in the Games Museum. Finally, in Brain Massage, you play an assortment of shooting mini-games and the game rates your brain power, just for fun. Point Blank DS isn't a deep DS experience. More mini-games would have helped its staying power, and the Brain Massage mode just seems tacked on, but it's still an entertaining and cheerful game that looks and feels like the arcade classic.  
Despite originally being a game about guns, Point Blank DS is kid friendly. Kids will love the quirky, cartoony graphics, sounds, and music. There is no blood, and none of the things you shoot are human, or even alive. Kids only shoot at cardboard cutouts of ninjas and criminals, and when you shoot them, they make it perfectly clear they were only made out of paper. Fire at a bird and you discover it was only made of glass, and shooting a sheep only shears the wool. You might shoot the occasional beehive or cartoon bug, though. If you ﾑshoot' at the cartoony Point Blank mascots Dr. Don and Dr. Dan, they only emit an ear piercing monkey screech. A stylus replaces the gun, but you still hear the sound of a bullet firing and empty casings falling when you touch the screen.
Reading skill is helpful to understand the rules of each game, results after a match, and other text in menus, but the simple challenges are pretty easy to figure out, and a non-reader could probably play the game just fine. Some may find the size of the text too small, though. The game has kind of a lazy localization. Only the text is translated into English, while all the voices in the mini-games are still in Japanese. Point Blank DS has four selectable difficulty levels, so players of all ages should find a challenge suited just to them. Make sure to tell your kids to tap gently so they don't hammer too hard on the screen with the rapid fire games. The Brain Massage mode seems tacked on as a response to the popularity of other brain training games on the DS. But some of the mini-games could be considered somewhat educational. Some require you to match shapes, compare differences, tap the correct time on a clock, or shoot at targets in a numbered sequence. All in all, Point Blank DS aims to please! This review edited by Dave Long Comments? Chat about it in our forums! Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Browse Amazon.com's selection of "point blank" themed games Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: Point Blank DS |
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