Blueprint (Bally-Midway 1982)

Before I begin, I was watching NFL Network to see some footage of the San Francisco 49ers in New Orleans for the Super Bowl when a Dead Space 3 commercial appeared on my screen. This time around, Microsoft were the ones sponsoring the game and they pushed the use of Kinect for voice commands. Afterwards, they said that Xbox 360 could be had for $99! $99!!

Of course, after doing some research I found that it was the $99 "deal" where people can get a 4GB 360 with Kinect for that price and then have to pay for XBL for 24 months at $15. In other words, you would get fleeced when the final tally is added up.

People over the years despise me over my criticism of Microsoft, rightful criticism. I never take shots at Nintendo and Sony, they say. The other two companies have done some dumb things in  their history but one thing they have never done is lie to people about the prices or give cryptic ads that do nothing to explain how "great" the Xbox 360 is.

I can't wait for the ads for the next Xbox console and see how they do as both it and Orbis are pretty much the same. What are they going to say other than overpaying for exclusivity that most times isn't anything special?

I do want to buy a 360 for Forza 4 and Forza Horizon. I can get one for $99 easy. I'll just buy a used one.

Blueprint, a forgotten arcade game from Bally-Midway from 1982, is a game that requires a lot of multi-tasking. You've got to do 4 or 5 things at once. People who are proud of that Platinum trophy in Dark Souls or getting all the achievements in a Call Of Duty game would break their controllers playing this difficult and at-times unfair game.

You are J.J., a smiling, Panama hat wearing man whose girlfriend Daisy is being pursued by California Raisin reject Ollie Ogre at the top of the screen. J.J. must collect the 8 pieces that make up the Blueprint in order to construct the killing machine that will off Ollie.

The player controls J.J. with a joystick and a button which doubles his speed but has a limit when it comes to its use.

The playfield consists of a maze with 10 homes, 8 of which have blueprint pieces and 2 others have bombs. The player goes into a house and if he gets a blueprint piece, he can then place it on it. If he gets a blue bomb, he must quickly go over to the Monster Pit and drop it in. He has to go over the pit vertically to drop it. Also, if you go into a house you've already been in, you will get a red bomb, which explodes even faster.

At times, Ollie will throw these flowerpots that bounce around unpredictably on the playfield until they reach the bottom of the screen and then will walk away to the sides. You can't touch these as they will kill J.J. You can hide inside a house but you better have a blueprint piece on you or you could have a red bomb and no way to defuse it before the flowerpot disappears.

Another enemy is Sneaky Pete, a Fry Guy like enemy who shows up to ruin your blueprint by collapsing it. You must grab him and take him over to the Monster Pit to get rid of him. Then you have to  rebuild your machine, which eats up time as Ollie closes in on doing who knows what to Daisy.

Later on, Fuzzy Wuzzy appears in the maze to keep you from the houses. He moves around erratically and is deadly to J.J.

With all these obstacles, the game gets really frustrating and cheap. You have to remember what houses you've gone into and worry about Sneaky Pete and the flowerpots and how close Ollie is to Daisy. It's a lot of multi-tasking.

Eventually, you will have the blueprint complete. J.J. must then run over to the Start button and then he fires this inaccurate weapon in hopes of hitting Oliie with a projectile. If he does, he gets a bonus and the level ends.

The game features intermissions that might remind people of Pac-Man.

The game has nice graphics and good gameplay with nice little ditties but is just too cheap and difficult. 20000 is a good score.

Home versions were made by CBS, the home division of Bally-Midway. The only version I've played is the Atari 5200 version, which is terrific. It's also a little easier.

If you really want to play a challenging arcade game, Blueprint is it. It never appeared on any compilations so MAME, a 5200 emulator or finding the Atari 2600 or 5200 versions are your options. You'll never look at Dark Souls the same way again.