Blue Estate is an on-rails shooter based on a comic book series in which the setting takes place in a criminal underworld. It attempts to bring a full set of humor, violence, and suggestive subject matter to the mix. While it is cartoony, it is not meant for the younger audience. Blue Estate was first released for the Playstation 4 in June of 2014 as well as for the Xbox One in February of 2015. But very recently, it has made it over to the PC as a Steam title which I am about to review.
Just like a typical on-rails shooter, Blue Estate is played in a first person perspective where you’ll want to survive against the enemies you come across. You’ll be equipped with a standard pistol with unlimited ammo by default. But you can also come across more powerful guns, although these would come in limited ammo. Additionally, there are health packs you can acquire, which is important since dying after a few times will result in you restarting the level.
Control-wise, Blue Estate makes use of the keyboard and mouse. As a result, it plays out pretty smoothly. The controls will take some time to get used to in order to attain a high accuracy rate. But with time, this accuracy can improve with developed skill.
Throughout the levels, you’ll be aiming to get as much of a high score as you can while surviving. There are isolated fights that result in slow motion effects along with mini-games that include shooting certain targets in order and pulling solely headshots in an effort to earn rewards. Each of the total of three boss battles in the game have a peculiar character to them. For instance, there is Kim Jong Un, who is pretty short but can also move very fast. You will also notice the humor during the story segments in between gameplays, which can be kind of frequent and dragged on.
Because the levels can be quite long, dying and replaying will be frequent. This can potentially grow to be tedious and annoying. Even so, Blue Estate does seem pretty short if you do master the game and its mechanics. Luckily you can engage in a two-player campaign mode and have your friend join in this gun-toting mayhem.
Blue Estate does have a nice appearance when looking at the graphics. It is a shame though that there are occasions where the camera moves very quickly, thereby robbing you of the opportunity to appreciate the environments and details. Still, the colors are plentiful, thus making the visuals very easy to enjoy. As for the audio, you get a fast-paced type of music that keeps the adrenaline going. While they are catchy, they’re not necessarily memorable. On the flip side though, the voice acting could be better, especially with all the corny dialogue going on.
Blue Estate may not be the breakthrough game. But it is worthy of noting especially since it’s serving as a FPS on-rails shooter, which is a rare species nowadays in the world of video games. The game is short and the humor is tongue-and-cheek. So your view towards Blue Estate will vary depending on how much you really are into this on-rails shooting genre.
