Blue Stinger (ブルー スティンガー) is a 1999 survival horror title developed by Climax Graphics for the Dreamcast.
Plot[]
It is Christmas Eve, 2018.
Emergency Sea Evacuation and Rescue member Eliot Ballade is on vacation with his friend Tim, sailing off the shores of Dinosaur Island, the land mass left from a sunken Mexican peninsula. Tim is creating a good luck charm doll, Nephilim, when suddenly a meteor hits Dinosaur Island, and creating a barrier that dissects the yacht the two are on, trapping Tim in stasis. A light source rises from the meteor, and takes the form of Nephilim, psychically connecting to Eliot. Suddenly the yacht is attacked by flying monsters and Eliot is washed up on Dinosaur Island's shore, guided by Nephilim who gives him a vision of a meteor and a creature.
Upon awakening on the island, Eliot is contacted via his radio by K.I.S.S. Dinosaur Security Team member Janine King who is putting out a S.O.S. signal. Unfortunately, whilst Eliot is a member of a rescue team, he is on vacation and lacks his usual equipment, so he also needs helping. Janine suggests he checks the nearby corpses for an ID card which should allow him access to the locked down island. As Eliot is checking however, he is attacked by a mutated creature. Fortunately for Eliot, the creature is killed by Dogs Bower, the captain of the S.S. Diana. He rescues Eliot, asking what happened to his friend Tim. Eliot isn't sure, believing Tim to be dead which causes Dogs to grow annoyed. Eliot states he's going to the island to try and help rescue the people there, and Dogs states he'll need help from someone tough like him.
As the two make their way into the island they are attacked by a creature from the water, but it is quickly killed by Janine sniping from the facility. They make their way to the control station to meet with Janine. Eliot immediately falls in love with Janine, whilst Dogs seems colder towards her. In order to discover what is going on with the mutated humans and aliens, Eliot and Dogs head out into the island.
Gameplay[]
Upon meeting Dogs, players can switch between Eliot and Dogs, both of whom have different abilities and different attacks.
- Eliot can swim and has some hand to hand combat skills by default. He has a larger pool of weapons, including melee weapons he can pull from and moves faster.
- Dogs is able to move heavy objects and moves slower, but has a block move that negates physical attacks. His weaponry tends to be heavier hitting, and can utilise T-shirts to gain martial arts abilities.
Upon killing enemies, they will drop coins all around where they die. Picking these up can be used to buy health, ammo and weapons from vending machines.
Exploration is a large part of the game, as Eliot and Dogs must make their way through the island's various scenes.
Characters[]
- Eliot Ballade: An Emergency Sea Evacuation and Rescue member on vacation. He develops a one sided relationship with Jeanine King. During the events of the game, he accidentally becomes mutated briefly. Eliot has access to 14 total weapons and can combine long and short range weapons.
- Dogs Bower: The captain of the S.S. Diana, a friend of Tim's and estranged father to Janine King. Dogs' short range weapons are T-shirts that have martial arts names on it, which allow him to become a master of them. His long range weapons tend to be heavier than Eliot's but he cannot equip both a long and short weapon simultaneously unlike Eliot.
- Janine King: The sole surviving member of Dinosaur Island's K.I.S.S. security team. She is a talented sniper and computers expert, but has hurt her leg prior to meeting with Eliot and Dogs which forces her to stay at mission control for most of the game.
- Nephilim: An ethereal being of unknown origins, it takes the form of Tim's good luck charm doll, and communicates exclusively with Eliot and Janine through telepathy and cryptic visions.
Cast[]
- Ryan Drummond - Eliot Ballade
- Deem Bristow - Dogs Bower
- Lani Minella - Janine King, Voice Recording
- Jon St John - Tim
Development[]
Pre-production of Blue Stinger began in September of 1996 at Climax Graphics with a start-up staff of 18 people made up as a 'Strike Team' from Dark Savior's CG division, including Masaki Segawa (Basilisk's future mangaka at the time) who created the character designs for the main characters. [1][2]
The 18 staff members reportedly worked 24 hour days in order to bring the game to life within a two year development process, creating a world which would ordinarily take a team of 50 to create. The staff also only took 5-6 days off total during this period.[1]
Production was finished in March, 1999, and whilst SEGA maintained the rights to the title, a deal with Activision being made to publish the title in the west.
Activision before publishing the game outside of Japan would demand a drastic change; a new camera be created that would follow the player characters closely behind rather than the cinematic style camera that was developed for the Japanese audience, believing western audiences wouldn't play the game without a behind the shoulders camera. This caused additional stress, and internally it was referred to as a 'Gero Camera' (literally vomit camera).[1]
Reception[]
In Japan the game did relatively poorly, selling only 111,000 copies in total(61,000 of which were sold in the opening week).
The game did considerably better in the west thanks to being a Dreamcast launch title for both North America and Europe, upping the sales to 500,000 copies which caused Sega to refer to it as a success, phoning Shinya Nishigaki and requesting a sequel for the game.
However, due to Nishigaki at the time working on his next game; Illbleed, this was deemed impossible.[1]
Trivia[]
- John Carpenter's The Thing was used for inspiration for the mutant designs.[2]
- The game was originally created for the Sega Saturn, and as a result doesn't utilise the Dreamcast's advanced bitmap graphics as a result.
- Eliot Ballade is voiced by Ryan Drummond (Sonic the Hedgehog), Dogs Bower is voiced by Deem Bristow (Dr. Eggman) and Janine King's voice actress is Lani Minella (Rouge the Bat) who also was the voice acting director for this game. Tim, Elliot and Dogs mutual friend is voiced by Jon St John (Big the Cat)
- Dogs Bower makes a brief cameo in Shinya Nishigaki's follow up game, Illbleed, having unfortunately been killed in the game.
- There's a Stamp Rally in Lab Town, featuring characters from Pen Pen TriIcelon. The characters also appear on posters around the Christmas mall area.
Gallery[]
