Blown Away from MGM Interactive, IVI Publishing and Imagination Pilots is based on last year's action film of the same name with Jeff Bridges and Tommy Lee Jones. Don't worry, this review won't be about all the ways this game is nothing like the movie, since I haven't seen the darn thing. I can only go by the game itself, which is an exasperating piece of work. I don't mean addictive, I mean exasperating.

	What little plot there is puts the player in the shoes of Jimmy Dove, an expert defuser for the Boston Bomb Squad. Suddenly, a longhaired maniac named Justus appears on the scene, determined to blow up you, your family and friends. It seems you are responsible for the death of his mentor, back when you used your real name, Liam. 

	This scenario is the springboard for the video sequences, which are quite good. Since the stars of the original film did not return to do the game, the part of Justus is played to the hilt by Jimmy Skaggs instead of Jones. He taunts the player over and over again to hurry up and solve whatever puzzle is on the screen, or face the explosive consequences.

	These puzzles are really what the product is about, and they are also its downfall. The structure of the product is similar to Hodj 'n' Podj, in that there are 24 different puzzles and challenges in the game, and you can either play them individually in practice rounds, or run Justus' jeering gauntlet in as little time as possible. Unfortunately, most of these puzzles have only one solution, whereas all the elements of Hodj 'n' Podj are completely replayable. Of the 24 puzzles in Blown Away, only 10 change their solutions.

	The player is also presented with very little information on what he is supposed to do to solve these things. If you don't follow Justus' description well enough, you can look in the manual, but don't expect it to be any clearer. In some of these things, the lack of instruction is there to give you something to try and work out in what finally turns out to be an insultingly simple problem. By the same token, some of the puzzles are extremely difficult. The range of challenge on these puzzles is so wide that it's hard to figure out who is supposed to be playing.

	Perhaps the most shameful and pointless addition to the roster of "games" is not even remotely gamelike. It is a computerized version of an old chestnut of a card trick. I learned this trick in the fifth grade, so it completely failed to impress me, but maybe there's someone in the world who will be dazzled by a digital video image of Justus choosing the right card. Incidentally, if you look at the scoreboard after this segment, you'll see that not only did you not get any points, there were no points to get. Just a little more time has been wasted.

	To further the idea that your life has pretty much been taken over by this gleeful psychopath, there are a few portions of Blown Away that have no game element other than speed and luck. No strategy whatsoever. That would be a little easier to take if it wasn't followed up immediately by complex word puzzles. 

	There are a few games in the package that are challenging and interesting to play. One is a series of differently colored chemicals that must be diverted to their properly colored dishes at the end of a maze of tubes. The only control you have over these volatile fluids is turning valves at intersection and trusting in gravity. 

	But most of the games are abstract number puzzles or word games. There's even an equivalent of Simon, the musical note matching game. Unfortunately, that's one of the ones that doesn't change it's solution.

	It might be impossible to get good at this game. That's what the instruction book says, anyway. That's apparently how they designed it. They wanted to give you the feeling of losing control. They said sometimes life is like that, especially life in the bomb squad. They neglected to say why anyone would actually voluntarily put themselves in that kind of situation. The player character I can understand. After all, he has the lives of loved ones at stake. But the player himself? He's just got a little time to kill, hopefully having fun. And fun doesn't seem to have been included in the design of Blown Away. Anxiety, yes. Fun, no.