'Splosion Man Review

Meet 'Splosion Man, he's a crazy foo' who gets around jumping around exploding on things, off things, and on people. The game has been around for a while now, but thanks to the recent bump in activity on it due to a recent price drop, we thought we'd blag a copy and give it a thorough going over.

Story

Twisted Pixel's 'Splosion Man is rather shallow on story to say the least. Where there's no actual clear reason for why our 'Sploding friend feels the need to mingle with mad scientists and crazy ass robots, you don't exactly miss it either.

The basic principle of the game is utilise the 'Splode by hitting any of the face buttons (x, b, a, y) to make him blow up. Think of these 'Splodes as jumps with extra fire power for blowing up items, moving massive walkways/doors (left/right or up/down) and to blow barrels up to higher plains. The idea is to get our Man to the exit gate so he can wave in an idiotic fashion at you to celebrate.

With each set of stages, the difficulty increases but luckily for us, the difficulty curve is a slowly building one like all good platformers. With 50 levels including boss and multiplayer (see below) there's plenty of content and bang for your buck ('scuse the dreadful pun[s]).

Gameplay

As previously stated, the simple aim is to get from the starting point to the end. You have your main man and his ability to explode himself up to 3 times before he needs to regenerate either on a ledge or via a glowing refuel point if your climbing dizzying heights. You need to use all the scattered around objects to unlock doors, escape traps, dodge electric fields and more in order to make the exit points.

The joy of this game, is the fluidity. If you're a properly confident and established player with great reactions, levels can be speed run in maybe 1-2 minutes, all of which are gloriously simple (in principle) and extremely satisfying. Whether chaining jumps off of walls, onto barrels, onto strafing floating platforms all while avoiding a random rising water level that's about to consume you is incredibly fun... and annoying if you're a bit crap (like me).

The shining selling point of this game is the one button fits all gameplay. Another feature definitely worthy of a mention and something which other game makers should learn by, is all the unlockable content associated with the game.

Not content with being the first game to utilise the avatar unlockable feature, the game features unlockable gamer pictures and an unlockable Xbox Dashboard theme. Little things like these impress us gamers, as they could've easily whacked a 40MS point for the pictures, 120 for the theme and 80 for the t-shirt and blagged us all out of more money, but no they decided to sweaten the cake for our ever demanding taste-buds.

Oh yeah, that reminds me: cake. The cake isn't a lie and instead is found dotted around the levels in hard to reach and hidden areas or locked behind doors when scared scientists try to distance themselves from you. Loving the "not a Valve reference" achievement to go along the 'collect' all the pieces goal.

Graphics

Looks wise, animation is cool and funky, fast and frenetic but disappointlingly repetitive as level after level sees the same locations re-used over and over. It's no bad thing as it keeps loading times to a minimum and keeps the action moving quickly. It's a negative point though on an otherwise good game.

Menu screens are vibrant, colourful and fully animated in 3d with crazed scientists fleeing from 'Splosion Man once a selection has been made. Little things like this impress me, and there's plenty of cheeky, childish humour dotted all around the game that never fails to raise a smile or two.

Sound

"Everybody loves donuts, I know I doo-oooo," whilst carrying a fat man above your head to use as a shield from a turret is simply wreaking of a win moment. Make 'Splosion man run and he'll so some crazy panting and quite frankly weird and hilarious noises. Don't think he's fluent in English, but he can say "pork" so it's near enough.

Background music is nice and simple and typically platformer-esque. Put me right in mind of Crash Bandicoot (specifically 3: Warped on the PlayStation 1) with its mix of ridiculous catch phrases, enemy sounds, background music etc. Another feature I particularly liked, was every time you 'Sploded, the background music would become louder and more dramatic and when you've calmed back down, it'd return to normal again. Nice little mechanic and feature.

Multiplayer

Featuring full 4 player online Xbox Live co-op, with each person having a differently coloured 'Splosion man and a unique series of levels requiring full team work by double jumping, switch pressing and alternating amongst other things, it almost feels like an extra game has been shoe horned into the party. It's an absolute hoot attempting to reach your goal, a real genuinely laugh out loud and entertaining experience that all ages will fail to not enjoy.

Summary

To summarise, 'Splosion Man leads the way with regards to offering the most value for money of any Arcade game out there. Levels are varied (except graphically), vibrant and entertaining and there's plenty of goodies to unlock to keep your interest.

Taking the game online only makes things even better and is a genuinely hilarious and entertaining way to waste hours. This is a triumph of keeping the gameplay simple and making it work. Easy to pick up and play but extremely difficult to master. A real triumph on Xbox Arcade and well worth your 800 points for sure.