Ten dollars certainly doesn’t go as far as it used to. What can you get with it today? Five gallons of gas? A cheap lunch? A Gamecube game? Blowout hits shelves with the budget price tag of only $9.99 US. This appears to be a recent trend with WarioWare, Inc: Mega Party Game$ being only $29.99 and Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes priced at $39.99. While Blowout has the cheapest MSRP for a new GameCube game ever, it also has some nagging problems. Its clear that a game priced at ten bucks won't have a huge development budget. But how does Blowout fair?

Blowout is a side-scrolling shooter, molded from the clay of games like Contra or CT Special Forces for GBA. The side-scroller is a genre that doesn’t get near enough attention on consoles, so Blowout was a refreshing change of pace. This quickly changed after the first few levels however, Blowout gets very repetive, really quickly. All the levels look almost exactly the same. Each level takes around twenty to thirty minutes to complete, and each shares the same visual background. While each level has many secret areas that can be found by destroying weak areas in the walls and floor, the game quickly gets old. The same enemies you fight on the first level, will be the same enemies you fight on the last levels, with only a few new types added in throughout the game. The gameplay hastily becomes tedious, and more of a chore than anything else to complete.

At the end of each level, the player must duke it out with a large boss (usually one large creature or 2 or 3 smaller ones.) The boss battles are the most challenging part of the game, and even they shouldn’t be to hard for most gamers. The enemies of Blowout are all genetically mutated aliens. Swarming wasp aliens, fire-breathing dog aliens, giant insects and mutants. Your usual cast of enemies in a science fiction shooter. The weapons range from machine guns, to flamethrowers, to futuristic weapons such as a fast firing nail gun and sonic pulse energy cannons. All perfectly capable of dealing out pain to the alien enemies you’ll face through the game's ten levels.

Players take the role of John “Dutch” Cane, a soldier sent in to secure the Battle Platform “Honour Guard”, which has been overrun by mutated aliens. Not exactly the most original story to ever be told, but shooters don’t really depend on the storyline, just the action. Blowout delivers on the action, with the levels being packed with nasty aliens just waiting to be burned, riveted, or blown to bits by trigger happy gamers. For fans of side-scrollers, the action is intense and never lets up. If only the levels would have been more varied, and the enemies not be so similar, the game could have been so much better.

The sound effects are good, but hardly the best I’ve ever heard. The music is generic hard rock guitar chords that get louder as the action on screen heats up. I found this highly enjoyable, but after hearing it for ten levels, I was ready to turn the volume down. Explosions, alien death screams, and voice acting are all nice, and the side jokes and humor made by the characters might draw a chuckle or two in between the action. The graphics look smooth, and the game never suffers from much slowdown.

All in all, I can’t say that Blowout is a completely bad game. For side-scrolling shooter fans, they will find plenty of old school action to love in this game. Its just not going to show them anything they haven’t seen before. Plus, the game is only ten dollars, which is only a few bucks more than a rental. The problems I have mentioned seem a lot less noticeable when you only layed down ten bucks for the game. Had the game been full price, I would have harped a lot harder on it’s problems. If your just looking for some cheap and quick shooting action, Blowout should fit the bill perfectly.