The story is quite convoluted and involves something about a prized artifact called the Ethereal Flame. It's unclear why it's so important or what kinds of powers it holds, because it couldn't do anything to keep the planet from being destroyed in a cataclysmic event. Civilization rebuilt itself atop the ashes of the old world and all that's left to do is win the favor of the gods... or defeat them. This requires racing combat aircraft called Blazers through a series of ruins turned into racetracks. The grand prize is the Ethereal Flame itself. Where were these gods during the apocalypse and why do we need their approval now? Who knows? Again, the plot is really fuzzy and inconsequential. The only thing that matters is super fast racing and combat.

Why this game, which features fast aircraft racing and combat, gets shoved into narrow claustrophobic tunnels is anyone's guess, but the concept completely wrecks any chances of it being fun. It would have been fine if players had to navigate through the occasional tight fitting tunnel, but every track in Pyroblazer is so cramped that racers are practically piled together. Even areas that look open are surrounded by invisible walls. Scraping against the sides (even invisible ones) does damage to your vehicle and slows you down, but there's no clear indicator of where the problem is coming from. The camera is off-center and so is targeting reticule. Scraping a wall causes sparks to fly all around the Blazer, so it's almost impossible to know what you're doing wrong. Our biggest problem was constantly hitting the ceiling, since we had no way to judge where the center of the tunnel was. The best we could do was to position our Blazer in a good spot and stare straight ahead, leaving little opportunity to appreciate the graphics and track design. A first-person point of view might have done wonders if the game supported it, or at least a directional damage indicator.

Then there's the combat, which seems haphazardly thrown in. Blazers all have two weapons: forward firing guns and mines. Picking up coins along the way charges up weapons and some give bonuses to guns or shields. This system punishes anyone in first place, since a lead racers instantly become prime targets. The tunnels are so narrow that it's like shooting fish in a barrel. Ironically, the main thing that offsets the combat is the difficult to navigate tunnels and camera problems stated earlier. Players can drop mines within these tight corridors, but all they do is slow players down. There's no indication that they do any damage. Additionally, being the first to pick up quad damage means very little when there's no one in front of you to shoot.

That's all there is to this game. The same broken formula gets repeated across 40 levels, which can be beat in about a day. We can't help wondering about the potential that was wasted by a couple of bad design decisions. These race tracks would have worked better if the vehicles were a little more grounded, like hovercrafts. Then Pyroblazer would be similar to F-Zero, but with guns. Conversely, the flying Blazers would have been great if the tracks were more open for maneuvering. If this game let players flip around and shoot while letting inertia carry them, then it could have been an excellent feature to design around. However, the biggest oversight of all is the lack of multiplayer. So, even if you were inclined to finish the whole game, there's little reason to ever pick it back up again.

Although Pyroblazer has a relatively low price tag, it's hard to recommend this game. Instead of getting a high-speed, twitch action, adrenaline rush we're left with a little racer that struggles sluggishly along and never makes it.

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