Battle Stations Blockade is a rail shooter with voxel graphics, In this game you’re two turrets at the end of a gun boat and in each level you travel around islands in the water. You’ll take on everything from paratroppers, to battleships, to jet skis, to submarines. Occasionally, you find tougher regular enemies marked with a briefcase about their heads, which are harder to kill, but provide a higher score. In each level, you’ll have several objectives, like take out 3 gunboats. All but the last one are optional, as that’s usually the boss. Each of your turrets has an independent health bar, but kill most enemies will restore health, so dying is relatively rare I found on the difficulty I played on. Note that higher difficulties do get much tougher, especially due to the addition of the heat mechanic. It will go up when you fire, and stop you firing when full.
In Battle Stations Blockade, by pressing ZL you bring up a wheel containing 9 weapons, from the standard .50 cal, to multi-missiles, nukes, torpedoes, and a mine launcher. The e-shop description claims that these are unlocked as the game progresses. They are not. They are available from the start. The .50 cal is the main weapon you’ll be using against most enemies. The torpedo is great against subs. The nuke is great against large enemies. Some, like the rail gun and the mine launcher I found no particular use for. Either way, the many weaponry does add a bit a depth to the game and strategic switching is key.
Battle Stations Blockade is the rail shooter without end!
Now that I’ve laid out the foundations of Battle Stations Blockade, let me talk about its main weakness. The issue is that most rail shooters are mercifully short, making sense as they were born in the arcades. But even in console games like Air Twister, the levels are very short and varied, so you don’t get bored. Instead, here you have ten really, really long levels, we’re talking in the vicinity of twenty-minutes to half-an-hour. Maybe they weren’t that long, but they certainly felt that long. While there is a good mix of enemies in the game, new ones are rarely introduced at all and those that are, are usually bosses. On top of that, the environment does not change between levels. Its always the same looking barren voxel islands. Next, there is no music, so you’re left with generic gun fire and explosions. In short, Battle Stations Blockade gets real old, real fast.
I wanted to love Battle Stations Blockade, but I can’t, because after a few levels, the sameness starts to become apparent. Even Co-Op won’t help because now two people are playing the same boring levels. Yet, I can’t give this a bad verdict because the fundamentals are sound. So in the end, Battle Stations Blockade will get a YMMV with a six back-end score. Maybe you can stand the blandness more than I did.
Overall: Battle Stations Blockade is a solid rail shooter let down by repetitive levels.
Verdict: YMMV
| Platform | Nintendo Switch |
| Release Date | 12/6/23 |
| Cost | $9.99 |
| Publisher | EastAsiaSoft |
| ESRB Rating | M |
Game provided for free from the publisher.
