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"A brave little sequel, but lacking in challenge"

OVERVIEW
Considering the success of the original Blue Max game, the existence of a sequel is no big surprise. Blue Max 2001 takes us well into the future, putting us in the cockpit of a flying saucer flying over futuristic enemy bases. Blue Max 2001 uses the same diagonal 3d engine the original Blue Max used, but this time provides the player with far more control over his craft. Unlike the original World War One bomber, the saucer can take off and land vertically, hover in midair, fire its cannon in six different directions, and take far more punishment. All in all Blue Max 2001 is a significantly easier game than the original.
While charming in its own right, Blue Max 2001 fails to recreate either the challenge or the atmosphere of the original game, and therefore cannot stand up to it, let alone best it. Nevertheless, Blue Max 2001 is a very playable title.

GAMEPLAY
The gameplay formula of Blue Max 2001 is very similar to that of Blue Max. The game consists of sorties on enemy bases, with the ability to rearm, refuel and repair your craft at friendly runways in between. Each enemy base is loaded with plenty of interesting targets (buildings and stationary vehicles) and well guarded by both ground based turrets and airborne fighters. Your objective at each base is to either destroy or pick up (depending on how the game is configured) a brown circular target called the Sequencer. If you fail to do this during your sortie, you are simply sent against another, similar base until you get it. Once you do, you advance through the game. Every time you manage to get a Sequencer, the next base you must attack is a well-defended water-based fortress, where the challenge is to stay alive rather than to pick up a Sequencer. After having faced a few of these fortresses, you are taken to a secret enemy base where advanced fighters will launch from underground hangars, giving you the dogfight of your life. After having faced three such bases, the final target appears. Destroying it will end the game.

Even if you manage to pick up every single Sequencer at every base on your first try, it will still take a good 30 minutes to get to the final enemy base. Since you have only one life, you must keep your craft alive all that time. Fortunately this is easier to do than in the original Blue Max, where just about any mistake meant instant death. Here, any kind of collision, crash or hit by enemy projectiles merely causes damage to your craft, destroying it only if you take damage for the fifth time. In the meantime, every hit you take hampers one of your systems (for example, hits can jam your guns or cause a fuel leak), but this damage can be repaired at your home base after every sortie.
So unlike the original Blue Max, where a single mistake could destroy your plane and end the game, Blue Max 2001 allows you to get away with a little sloppy flying now and then. In addition, takeoff and landing has become much easier since you can stop your craft in midair, and takeoffs can be performed vertically and instantly. This takes away much of the grief (but also the challenge) experienced in the first game.

All in all, Blue Max 2001 fails to bring about the exhilaration the original did. In Blue Max, you were constantly on edge and making sure you stayed out of harm's way. In Blue Max 2001, you can literally sit back and relax while piloting your craft over enemy bases, destroying everything in your path. Assuming you play on the easiest difficulty setting, that is.

CONTROLS
Your flying saucer is controlled with the joystick in a relatively easy-to-learn way. Pushing the stick left or right will move you in that direction, up and down will control your altitude, and pushing it to the upper right or the lower left will make you go forward or backward. By going backward all the way to the bottom left corner of the screen, you can stop your craft from going forward. By going to the upper right corner, you can start moving forward again.

Firing your gun is a simple matter of holding the fire button and indicating the direction you want to fire in. It is easy to lay a crossfire by just holding the fire button and rapidly turning the stick in circles, although aimed fire is usually more effective. Bombs are dropped by holding the fire button and tapping the stick down.

Like its predecessor, Blue Max 2001 controls smoothly and easily. It is good to see that this important point hasn't been forgotten.

GRAPHICS
Blue Max 2001 looks a little better than its predecessor, but not by much. The surface of the planet you fly over is a dull brown landscape with a few low hills. Enemy bases consist of grey roadways connecting to central squares, which usually hold one building or another. Buildings come in different shapes and colours, but once you've bombed one enemy base, you've seen them all at least once.
Two types of enemy fighters exist, and neither is particularly spectacular. Your own blue saucer is a fairly simple graphic as well. It must be said that this is an improvement from the first game, though, where the same graphic was used for your own plane and all enemy craft.

All things considered, graphics have improved only a bit since the original, and remain a weak point of the game.

SOUND
Blue Max 2001 appears to be a lot quieter than the original. This is because your craft is completely silent. The absence of a steady engine roar may come as a disappointment to some, but I for one don't miss it. Explosions and shots sound better than the original, and do not get quite as annoying. Repetitive, certainly, but they are easier on the ears by a long shot.

The game has good music as well, but unfortunately it only plays at the beginning and the very end. A background tune, or preferably a few different ones, would have been welcome here.

DIFFICULTY
Apparently the designers considered the original Blue Max to be too hard for the masses, as the difficulty level has been toned down very strongly in the sequel. Those who are skilled at Blue Max will certainly excel at Blue Max 2001. There are a few difficulty-related game settings which can help make the game more challenging, but even at the highest level, this game is easier to win than Blue Max at the easiest level.
The question is, is that good or bad? In my opinion it's a mixed bag. It was certainly too easy to die in original Blue Max. It just doesn't feel right to get an instant game over after 30 minutes (or more) of flying, just because you landed a little too late and now lack enough runway to take off again.
Still, Blue Max 2001 is clearly lacking in challenge, and that in turn harms its replayability. There's not much use in coming back to a game which can be learned and mastered at the highest difficulty setting within a week. While this may not apply to the casual gamer, veterans of the original game or similar shooters will breeze through this one.

THE GOOD
Blue Max 2001 deserves praise for:

- Good gameplay and smooth controls;
- Ability to set difficulty through multiple options.

THE BAD
Blue Max 2001 regretfully fails in the following departments:

- Overall lack of challenge;
- Fails to capture the charm of the original game.

CONCLUSION
Those who liked Blue Max, or have played similar games, will likely want to play Blue Max 2001 at some point. It is also a great game to get used to the genre, as it is much more forgiving of mistakes than these games usually are. Those who are looking for a good challenge will probably be disappointed, though.
In its own right, Blue Max 2001 is a good game with its low difficulty level being its only flaw. When compared to Blue Max, however - and a sequel always invites comparison with the game it was based on - it will have to be content with a second place. When it comes to atmosphere and exhilaration, the original takes the gold.



Reviewer's Score: 7/10 | Originally Posted: 07/30/01, Updated 07/30/01