System: Nintendo Wii

Publisher: Majesco

Reviewer’s rating: ***

ESRB rating: Everyone

Game type: 2-D shooter

Kind of like: “Gradius”

Best feature: By picking up enemy debris, you can make your ship hilariously gigantic.

Worst feature: The game quickly gets extremely hard.

The bottom line: “Blast Works” is an unassuming game from the package. It doesn’t even necessarily look like a game.

But it’s a new twist on an old-school 2-D shooting game. It lets you design enemies, ships and levels.

The game at first seems simplistic. You have a ship that flies from left to right. Enemies come at you, and you have to shoot them and dodge their bullets. You have a fire button, but you pretty much just hold that down the whole time.

The game is crazy in one important respect, though. Enemy ships you destroy begin tumbling off the screen. If you run over them, they’re added to your ship. Pretty soon you have a floating junk heap, spouting bullets in all directions.

Bullets will break off pieces you’ve attached, but there’s another button you can use to make added parts temporarily vanish. This lets you slip through gaps between bullets and unleash the collective power of all the parts you’ve added.

An editor allows you to design enemies, including movement patterns and weapons. You also can change your ship or design a level. Levels and parts can be downloaded, but saved content takes up a lot of memory on your Wii.