Pod Blaster

Pod Blaster is the sixteenth story mission and sixth to take place on the Axiom. It is a rail passage where Wall-E, trapped in a Escape Pod through recovering the plant, has to destroy space debris with the laser. This mission is considered non-canon, though in both cases Wall-E is stuck in the Escape Pod.

Story
EVE intends to discard Wall-E through sending him back to earth in a Escape Pod. However, Gopher appears and is seen putting the real plant in the Escape Pod. Wall-E immediately wants to retrieve it and thus gets trapped in a Pod on self-destruct. However, the later part is canon. In the game, it is assumed Gopher intends the Pod to collide with the space debris, destroying it.

Gameplay
There is no self-destruct, instead, the Escape Pod is equipped with two lasers with a focus in the middle. These are identically to the laser Wall-E uses, however, they do not run out of laser energy. During the short mission, Wall-E has to destroy the space debris. This mainly includes big rocks, sometimes breaking apart in two pieces. However, trash cubes from the Axiom are also to be avoided. (This can be considered an oversight; Wall-E is flying away from the Axiom, as are the trash cubes, however, in the mission, the trash cubes fly towards the Pod and thus the Axiom.) The laser gets stuck and Wall-E has to quickly open the door by completing a mini game. One of the fail conditions is failing the game through depleting the time meter. In this case, there is all tiles of the pad flash glowing red. This is exclusive to this level. Apart, if one previously did not shoot down the debris in time, the Pod would also collide.

If Wall-E already reached the pad, he will not re-spawn at the beginning of the level but the animation rushing to the pad directly.

Trivia

 * Like other rail missions like Surprise Departure, this mission does use roughly the same musical theme from other rail missions, in this case, the following mission Cosmic Speedway uses the same tune.
 * As said earlier, this mission is largely non-canon.
 * This is one of the mission that by itself is shorter than the cutscenes around it.