Apart from Sonic Adventure, this was the first Dreamcast game I ever played, so it was a pretty special part of my childhood gaming years. I noticed it was similar to Resident Evil with a more futuristic and action-orientated setting.
In the year 2018 ESER officer Elliot G. Ballad (Brian Drummond) is on a Christmas vacation when a meteor suddenly hits Dinosaur Island and creates a massive energy dome that surrounds it. Elliot makes it ashore to discover the island is overrun by monsters created by the meteor impact. Concurrently, a mysterious alien being named Nephilim appears and accompanies Elliot for unknown reasons (at first). Assisted by a ship captain named Dogs Bower (Dean Bristow- RIP) and security guard, Janine King (Lani Minella), Elliot must uncover the reason for the disaster and prevent it from spreading any further.
For 1999, the graphics were wonderful and greatly demonstrated the Dreamcast's visual capabilities. The levels were large and had full 3D rendering, which was uncommon at the time. But some of the maps and had confusing layouts that were tricky to navigate. The character designs are polished and well-designed, but their animations are limited, even during cutscenes. The mutant enemies looked and sounded legitimately scary, and the bosses were challenging.
The soundtrack had a powerful and cinematic feel to it that would keep you tense, excited, and ready for action, except for the supermarket section that played a cheery and out of place Christmas music that quickly became grating.
The game's formula followed that of Resident Evil in that you fight monsters, collect items, and advance further by finding keys or defeating bosses. But rather than the traditional fixed camera angles, there's a dynamic, behind the back styled camera that was frustrating at times when it collided with or was sometimes blocked by Nephilim as she constantly follows you around.
The game felt like a precurser to action horror games like Resident Evil 4 thanks to the monetary system. Killing enemies would make them to drop coins you could use to buy weapons, ammo, and healing items from vending machines. Plus, your armament is stronger and more extensive, including weapons like a railgun, bazooka, minigun, and even a napalm launcher.
For me, the main drawback of the game was the voice acting. Despite having a respectable cast that ironically starred in the Sonic Adventure series, the voice actors all gave a really crappy performance. They pause awkwardly during cutscenes, have their lines abruptly cut off, or they talk over each other as they engage in poorly written dialogue.
In the end, Blue Stinger was a pretty good adventure game for the Dreamcast, and while it didn't reach the level of success as Resident Evil, I still remember it fondly and it felt like a forerunner to action horror games released in the future.
