Here it is, folks! This is my review of probably the best game on the TurboGrafx-16! Part 3 of my beloved Let’s Go Turbo series of columns! In honor of the solar eclipse (Well, to be fair, this game doesn’t have anything to do with the eclipse, but it DOES take place in outer space! And I’m pretty sure that’s where the eclipse happens! Right?) I am gonna talk about BLAZING LAZERS!!
According to a very intelligent and lovely YouTuber who goes by the handle of Cannotbetamed, Blazing Lazers is Kanye West’s favorite game. She’s usually right about things, (Although, she did say Bonk was creepy looking in her review of Bonk’s Adventure and she was WAY wrong about that!)
But you know who’s wrong about almost everything? Kanye West. I say he was wrong about ALMOST everything, because, despite her myriad flaws, Kim Kardasian is indeed one fine foxy Lady, and Blazing Lazers is indeed one awesome game!
Since I was a teen, Galaga has always been one of my fave arcade games. It was the sequel to Galaxian and the spiritual successor to Space Invaders, but those games were not at my local arcade, so I would play the Galaga/Ms. Pac Man combo machine until I ran out of quarters.
And, of course, I’m a Pac-fan but the Galaga portion of the arcade introduced me to the genre of vertical scrolling space shooters and I’ve been a geek for the genre ever since.
Now, for the grotesquely underinformed, the vertically scrolling space shooter genre is not as complicated as the Bonk genre. In the Bonk genre, you are a cave dude who pulverizes things with your abnormally sized head, munch meat to make yourself stronger, and swim inside the intestines of dinosaurs, among other things. So, there is only one series of games I can think of in that genre. (There are other caveman games I won’t get into now, but none in the Bonk genre. It’s not a genre. I just wanted to talk about Bonk more.)
There are exactly one ZILLION vertically scrolling space shooter games and the TurboGrafx-16 managed to get one of the best of them, BLAZING LAZERS! And, fun fact, that isn’t the original name of the game.
The original name of the game is Gunhed. Gunhed is a great Japanese franchise, but if I explain it, this article will go on for fifty pages. So, let’s just say Blazing Lazers is a game that involves vertically scrolling shooting space ships, and I did beat it once! Well, technically, I only beat it by downloading it on a virtual console and using save states, but I COUNT THAT! That’s the only way I really “beat” most games.
But these Lets Go Turbo! columns I’ve been writing are about games of which I’ve acquired actual physical copies. Of course, there are no save states on physical copies of games. So, I get to about halfway through level two before my ships explode and my lives run out. But it’s a FUN one-and-a-half levels!
I dunno how Kanye did it without save states, but he did always say he was a genius, and maybe he was, when it came to TurboGrafx-16 games.
I’m not gonna spoil anything for you, because there is nothing to spoil. You just vertically scroll and shoot suff until you die, but, like I said, that is one of my fave game genres.
There are a lot more Turbo-Grafx-16 games I will cover as I aquire them. I’m looking for a good priced Air Zonk ( It’s like Bonk in Space flying a ship-sadly, horizontally, not vertically.) but for now, Blazing Lazers is pricey enough!
I say, get the system and get a Bonk game and Blazing Lazers and that’s really all you need.
But I’m just crazy enough to get more! Stay tuned!
And, if you happen to watch the eclipse today, be responsible! Put some kind of a thing over your face when you are looking at it and DON’T LOOK AT IT!! Then your eyeballs will all be good and healthy to play TurboGrax-16!
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