Splosion Man review

The zany character of Splosion Man might be enough in itself to put people off. He seems like one of those characters that tries a little hard to be funny, but ultimately becomes so irritating you just want to see him jump off a cliff (remember Gex?). Then he clicks. Those crazy animations, that joyous laugh and just the way he moves, whether it be him holding out his arms like a plane or dragging them along the floor like an ape on fire, he has charm. Essentially an experiment gone wrong, Splosion Man is happy to blow up everything and everyone in his path, actually if it werent for the comedic visual style then this would be considered quite a dark game. After all, not many games with this look have scientists arms coming off and being reduced to meat fillets. The comedy aspect coming into full affect once you encounter a rather rotund scientist resulting in a brilliant donuts song. Its a surreal moment that has to be seen to be believed.The core idea behind Splosion Man is platforming, puzzle and speed. Imagine a cross between N+ and Sonic the Hedgehog and youre on the right track. You can explode three times before you fall back to the ground, the whole idea behind the game is built upon this principle. It may sound simple, but it wont be long before the difficulty ramps up and the anger will rise. Each level you have to navigate has a number of obstacles to overcome. These range from switches that need to be triggered to robotic enemies that halt your progress. The way each level is designed though is really superb, to the way the puzzles are presented to the smooth learning curve.What starts off as a reasonably pleasant walk in the park turns into pad throwing frustration. With a total of fifty levels and three bosses the first areas are simple exercises that simply get you used to controlling Splosion Man, but soon youll need fast reflexes and sometimes that isnt even enough. While it may be possible to complete one of the later levels without dieing, we cant help shaking the feeling that at times it can come down to trial and error. With checkpoints at regular intervals this is hardly as big a problem as it couldve been. It is nevertheless annoying when you miss a jump or exploding barrel simply because you moving so fast it was impossible to see. Nothing though is as annoying as the final boss, which will break a huge number of players. If you do find yourself having trouble with the previous levels though and the game actually allows you to skip to the next stage. Naturally we never took the offer because we refused to be beaten.If youre bored of playing on your own (unlikely) then youll be glad to know that co-op play is included. Teaming up to solve puzzles being just as satisfying as on your own, especially with a silky smooth framerate. Hopefully some DLC will be making its way to Splosion Man, wed certainly be interesting in spending some cash on more levels.Twisted Pixel showed that it had promise with The Maw, but with Splosion Man its definitely cemented its place as one of the top developers for the XBLA. It may be just as frustrating as it is enjoyable, but its one of those games you wont be able to put down till youve finally mastered each level. And all of this for just 800 points.