Majesco had what looked like a very early build of Blast Works on display at Barker Hangar this week—so early, in fact, that it was virtually indistinguishable from the Tumiki Fighters title that it was based on.

Blast Works is a side-scrolling shoot-em-up with a Katamari-like twist: ships you defeat can be picked up and added to your own ship by swooping down onto them as they fall from the sky. The resulting conglomeration adds the firepower from the defeated ships to your own.

Controls for the build used the Nunchuk's stick to move the ship, and a button on the Wii Remote to fire; it didn't use any pointing or motion functionality at all. While we were told they were investigating doing so, and while this jives with their original release announcement, I have to note that it controlled very well already—I'd caution them to make sure they're careful not to break a good thing.

The game also comes with a ship editor (which we actually saw first), letting us build our base ship out of primary shapes as well as picking its firing patterns. We didn't get a chance to see the level editor, unfortunately, but that was also there.

My biggest complaint about the game is that the game's look needs some polishing. The text, while distinct, is hard to read; and it's very easy to lose where your ship is, especially when playing the four-player simultaneous mode (which Dean won handily by creating a ship that spanned the entire screen, I might add.) When I could see my ship, though, I was really having a blast with Blast Works. It's a really neat idea that I'm really looking forward to seeing the final version of.