Max Blaster and Doris de Lightning Against the Parrot Creatures of Venus is a well-deserved winner of Adam Cadre's Spring Thing 2003. Similar to Robb Sherwin's A Crimson Spring except less dark and more humorous, Max Blaster is a fun romp that fans of superhero games will enjoy. The game's highlight is not in the plot, which is your typical defeating-the-mad-scientist fare too often seen in Marvel comics, but the superb atmosphere created by rock-solid writing that really brings the male-female duo to life. Especially entertaining are the numerous dialogues, including funny friendly jabs between the two costumed heroes. The game lets you play as Max Blaster or Doris de Lightning, and even though both of them are on the same mission, each of the two sees the action from his or her perspective and has different tasks to accomplish. This makes Max Blaster essentially two games in one: you can play the game twice to find different puzzles and view the action from another hero's perspective. Puzzles are logical and fun to solve; most of them require you to tinker with various hi-tech gadgets in the environment. The squirrel puzzle in particular is very clever and will give you a great sense of accomplishment after figuring it out ;) With a spot-on comic-book atmosphere, wonderful sense of humor, and well-designed characters and plot, Max Blaster is a fun competition-sized game that should appeal to every superhero fan. Two thumbs up! Reviewed by: Underdogs |