Playing A Game Instruments of Destruction PC

Blast Corps is a truly fond memory for me: using creative and wacky vehicles, like a side-swiping dump truck and a giant one-armed mecha, to demolish buildings in the name of safety. Sadly, 1997-era Rare quickly moved on to new business (GoldenEye 007, Banjo-Kazooie, et al) and never looked back; after three decades of no sequels or remasters or reboots, I thought I might be the only one who remembers Blast Corps. But it turns out I'm not alone after all.

Instruments of Destruction succeeds brilliantly at fulfilling my nostalgia for Rare's N64 explosion-fest. Given a flimsy premise of knocking down unsafe structures, you pilot scores of wacky, experimental demolition vehicles through a series of destruction, racing, and move-boxes-to-places missions. And when I say "wacky" and "experimental" I mean...

  • The Hiker: a tractor with a flipping platform, like a dang battlebot!
  • The Puck: a helicopter that magnetically drops, then retrieves, a super-heavy wrecking puck!
  • Goliath Grappler: a tank that shoots and retracts a giant harpoon!
  • SuperRoller: a rolling sphere which magnetically collects debris! (yes, it's Katamari Damacy)

... are just a few of this game's wild and crazy Instruments. Nearly every mission, including "challenge" variants, introduces a new weapon-laden truck or cannon-turreted tank or laser-spitting helicopter or et cetera.

Some vehicles are difficult to control - particularly a handful of hovering craft whose radial symmetry obscures which direction is "forward" - but the game's immense arsenal means that there's always something new and inventive just around the corner. (Plus, awkwardly stumbling into stuff by accident is still pretty fun.)

And that's key to how Instruments of Destruction doesn't simply re-iterate Blast Corps, whose scope is relatively quaint by today's standards. Instruments re-envisions Rare's idea, and recaptures the feeling of its arcade-ey sandbox-ey demolition at a larger, modern scale.

The soundtrack is fucking rad, too.

What more could you ask for? Well, maybe a few quality-of-life improvements, like an easier way to navigate the level-select menu/map; and a mission radar to help find objectives, which are hard to see in some levels' terrain.

I guess I "could" ask for a cohesive open world inbetween the game's missions, and a compelling narrative told by interactive NPCs. A more-engaging world might've motivated me to check off more optional-challenge boxes, and dive deeper into its "Build & Destroy" vehicle-construction mode. That's really not something I'd expect from a solo developer, though. (Even one whose resume includes Red Faction: Guerrilla.)

As an explosive destruction sandbox with arcade challenges, and as a modern love letter to Blast Corps, Instruments of Destruction is more than good enough.

Better than: attempting to replay Blast Corps, for sure.
Not as good as: "a cohesive open world" with destruction, e.g. Red Faction: Guerrilla or The Saboteur
Pro-tip: turn off controller rumble, unless you want full-strength non-stop force feedback.

Rating: Good