'Splosion Man
‘Splosion Man didn’t really have a lot of press. Aside from the funny name, and that it was part of Xbox’s summer of arcade line-up I heard nothing about it prior to its release.
I played the demo when it came out and was intrigued. It was a pretty interesting take on the puzzle based platformer genre, and the few levels provided sold me on the full game.
The game itself is tough to describe, it feels a bit like old school puzzle platformer games like the original Prince of Persia and Oddworld. The concept is one that doesn’t seem like it could last and stay fresh for 50 levels of gameplay, but the game is designed to throw new challenges at you every couple of levels so it never feels stale.
The concept itself is that you are ‘Splosion Man, some kind of experimental creature who breaks free from his captor scientists and tries to break out of the lab to freedom. The game story is told through some very fun sequences between the scientists and ‘Splosion Man and features almost no dialog. It’s simple and charming, and works really well.
Video based on demo
‘Splosion Man is armed with 2 things, his ability to explode himself, and a severe case of ADD. The controls are as simple as it gets. Left stick moves, any other button makes you explode. Exploding works like jumping. You can do 3 in a row, before having to recharge. The majority of the difficulty in the game comes from the environment, which is full of traps and obstacles. You never really have much of a problem figuring out what to do; instead it’s the timing to the explosions you have to get don to escape some tricky traps.
There are tons of traps like closing spike traps, pools of acid, sentry guns, laser fields, and sentry bots. Any robot has to be exploded from behind to beat it, and the guns are usually operated off screen by scientists that you can get around to and kill to deactivate the gun.
There are some neat features like fat scientists that you can carry around as shields to block gun fire, and platforms that change position when you explode near them, and tons of other things that keep the game interesting.
Another major object in the game are barrels, there are several types of barrels that when you explode near them have different effects. Some send you flying to a pre-determined destination, others just increase the range of your explosion, and some fly away from you to damage nearby things. The most challenging parts of the game are comprised of a series of barrels that you have to get like a 10+ chain combo to avoid death. It makes for some interesting and hectic gameplay, and almost feels like a 2d Sonic or Donkey Kong Country game.
One thing about the game, which is good or bad depending on how you play games, is the par time for each level. The times are pretty crazy; they remind me of the old Wolfenstien/Doom par times. They are completely impossible the first time through and you have to complete the level completely perfect with all the shortcuts and tricks you can to hit it. It reminds me of the Mirror’s Edge or Portal time trials.
It doesn’t make any difference to the game if you hit the par time or not so you can either ignore it or have a new goal when you’re done the game. Every level also has a cake in a tougher to reach area that you can collect for more points.
The last thing to bring up is the humor in this game. For how little dialogue it has, almost everything said will have you busting a gut. When you explode scientists they turn into pieces of meat, and there are tons of little touches here and there to make this a truly funny game.
The game also features a co-op mode for 2-4 players. It’s completely new levels which require players to work together to get through the sections. It’s a great way to add more to the game and some new strategy that would be possible with just one player.
I don’t have much to complain about with this game. It’s the perfect length, and it does platforming with puzzle elements really well. It’s both fun and funny which is a bonus and plays really smoothly. I recommend checking out the demo and seeing if this game is for you!
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