Rather than just rely on the big name in survival horror back then (Resident Evil), Dreamcast scored a handful of exclusive takes on the genre (none of which turned into cherished franchises ). Blue Stinger has familiar elements of survival horror games, but it feels more like a weak, annoying action game with monsters.
For starters, the look of the game does not lend itself to the feelings stirred by the dark, empty corridors and sinister locations that make survival horror games so eerily immersive. Like most Dreamcast titles, the graphics are vibrant, crisp, colorful, and blocky, bringing to mind an animated cartoon. Not to mention, the game takes place during the day—although you’ll only know that when you’re using outside boardwalks and bridges to get to inside locations that all look the same.
Oddly you land on “Dinosaur Island” (which is more like an ocean facility like in Deep Blue Sea), but there are no dinosaurs. You’re mostly attacked by deformed humanoids with numerous big arms. You’ll also encounter tentacles that whip around from the floor or hang from the ceiling, monster birds, flying monster bugs, land piranha, giant caterpillar things, and annoying as hell drones that shoot at you while you’re running around frantically in open spaces trying to figure out where the hell to go next.
Worst of all, monsters respawn. You can accidentally go back the way you just came after killing a monster—leading to a load screen (remember those days?)—go right back to where you meant to be (waiting for the load screen again), and have to fight the same monster again. Argh! Killing monsters sends coins flying, and you have to run around and collect them all like a Mario brother. Would be nice to just have a damn magnet to draw them to you. Not to mention there were times when the coins would fall in a place on screen that my character couldn’t reach. On the bright side, you need that money to buy supplies at vending machines, but considering you keep encountering the same monsters over and over, you’re basically just making money you need to buy supplies you just depleted while killing the same monster again.
Occasionally you just incidentally stumble upon bosses that come up unexpectedly while you’re in the middle of a mission, and killing them usually scores you some object you need to move forward in the game.
Health and ammo can also be found lying around, but there’s a reason there are vending machines all over the place…you need a lot of health and ammo to battle monsters repetitively. These vending machines also offer better weapons if you have enough money to purchase them.
You can shoot enemies with firearms, which is simple—a single trigger/reload button plus auto aiming gives you somewhat of an advantage. If you’re low on ammo you can also melee fight monsters. Again, it’s just one button to execute a melee attack, but there are a bunch of combo strikes that you really have no control over (literally accomplished by button mashing the melee button repeatedly), and melee fighting leaves you more vulnerable to attack since you’re right on top of the enemy.
Since there are fewer buttons and sticks on the Dreamcast controller, the layout is simplified. Unfortunately, this leaves you with no control over the camera, and it’s absolutely terrible. You often run into new rooms to find your camera is aimed down. You can’t move your view up to see the names of rooms above doors, so when looking for particular locations you have to run back away from the door to get the sign in the view of the camera. It also creates a disadvantage when trying to fight monsters you can’t see onscreen, or when you are required to specifically shoot objects as part of a task, but you can’t get those objects in your sights at all. Worst of all, there are times when you walk into a room and can’t even take one step forward before either regular enemies or a boss start attacking you, leaving you no choice other than to just stand in that doorway shooting and just hoping for the best.
And speaking of doorways, if you accidentally click near a door the game immediately sends you through it even if you didn’t intend to go through it, yet if you leave a room accidentally and want to go right back in, the game totally ignores your clicks on the door when you turn around. You literally have to walk away from the door and approach it again before the clicking will be recognized. WTF?
Blue Stinger doesn’t have tank controls like Resident Evil did back then, but the controls respond too fast to the point that you feel like you can’t contain the character’s crazy running, turning, and reversing. How hard you press on the stick determine how fast or slow he moves, but trying to hold a steady hand for slow movement is tedious, and quite frankly no fun. However, there are times you want to walk slowly…like a segment involving traveling on lots of catwalks. I learned the hard way that this game is not forgiving if you move to close to the edge of a drop-off. Adding to the frustrating movement issues, there are also underwater swimming segments. Swimming is tedious because you run out of air fast and have to just figure out the trick to swimming up for air. Compounding the wonky swimming controller issue and lack of air, there are also giant fish to contend with. Sigh.
The inventory screen is fairly basic and does freeze the game in the background as well as pausing the timer during timed side missions. Within the inventory screen is the map, which is pretty useless, with no names of rooms and just a different color showing the room you’re in—no handy arrow designating your character and which direction he’s facing. Certain rooms have a map download station and save station where you do the good old slot saves whenever you want, plus there are often vending machines in these rooms.
Another interesting aspect of this game is that you actually have a partner with you, but he is only seen on screen during cut scenes, and he doesn’t join in battles! You can, however, switch playable character in the inventory screen if you want to use a different weapon. Each guy has unique weapons, and some weapons are better than others for fighting certain bosses. Also of note, at one point these buddies get naked together for a relaxing bath in the middle of all the chaos they’re dealing with! There’s a very daddy and his boy vibe between them.
And speaking of having someone with you, perhaps the oddest element of this game is that you are constantly followed by a little blue Tinkerbell type fairy. I have no idea what her purpose is (she sucks as a guardian angel), and honestly, she’s basically a fairy flashlight, because her glow lights up darker areas.
Other than fighting the same monsters over and over, the game mostly involves just running around collecting keys for other doors. No puzzles to solve beyond figuring out how to push boxes around to climb on them to reach other areas to find items you’ll never even know are there unless you read a walkthrough. Seriously, a walkthrough is essential to get through this game if you don’t want to waste hours going in circles, because there are really no clues as to what you are supposed to be accomplishing at any given time—just running through endless halls and into rooms clicking on the scenery hoping you’ll accomplish something.
There are also side missions that involve saving characters and doing other tasks, and you get special weapons as rewards, but I didn’t quite know when I was doing a side mission because they’re just integrated into the game. You don’t even have to do them and not doing so doesn’t affect the game at all, but you wouldn’t know that as you play. As far as I can tell, the side missions were all timed segments. I hate timed missions. With these timed segments, you really have no idea what to do or where to go within that time unless you follow a walkthrough. It doesn’t help that everything looks alike and it’s all a big maze with a lot of running back and forth.
So how else can the game make running back and forth with respawning monsters more annoying beyond catwalks of death and killer fish in the water? There’s a section that requires you to run through freezer rooms cloaked in mist. Brrrr. You have to keep an eye on your body temperature and find warm rooms in between trying to accomplish shit in the area—which makes those respawning monsters infuriating. Eventually you find a “heater” which turns off your temperature meter. My advice? Read a walkthrough and go for the heater unit immediately before doing anything else, because good luck finding the warm rooms when you’re on the verge of freezing to death. Unfortunately, there’s a similar challenge with a section filled with poisonous gas…and you don’t find a gas mask to get through it. Sigh.
Later in the game there’s a frustrating area that requires you to repeatedly crawl up pipes and on ceilings to travel through vents. The camera angle is topsy-turvy, the controls seem to go in the reverse of the direction you want to go, and it’s not just a straightforward crawl—you have to click by the vents to move on to the next area.
As you near the end of the game, it’s one tedious task after another. You first have to swim through loads of tunnels filled with killer fish. You then have to climb your way to the top of a tower, with dropout platforms and a few enemies along the way. The game also puts you facing a drop-off every time you climb a ladder, with a super close view of the back of your head, so if you don’t turn around or if you take the slightest step forward you will fall off the tower. Not fun.
Then, right before the final boss, a guarding mission is thrust upon you. You have to keep some invincible enemies away from one character for three minutes. Bye-bye to all that ammo you need for the final boss.
The giant final boss mostly breathes fire at you and will try to step on you, but it doesn’t take many shots to kill him if you have one of the heftier guns.
And finally, there is a twist near the end that explains why it’s called Dinosaur Island, plus there are aspects of the game that make it appear this game somehow takes place at Christmas time, including one of your characters donning a Santa suit (the daddy, of course).
Because it has been so long since I played Blue Stinger (like…20 years. Damn!), I don’t remember thinking back then “I never want to play this game again”. Going forward now that I have replayed it, I will make it a point to remember that I never want to play this game again.
