de Blob

By - Kai S.

Imagine a world without any color. A world where everything was dark and gloomy, the only colors you will ever see are black, white and gray. That is exactly what the Raydians in de Blob are being forced to deal with after Comrade Black and the INKT Corporation took over their previously color filled world. But they aren’t going to sit around and take it, no, with your help they are going to fight back to restore the color of Chroma City.

de Blob takes place in Chroma City which used to be the most colorful city in Raydia. While the Raydians were enjoying their colorful life, Comrade Black - who believes color is a crime and everything should be colorless - comes in with the INKT Corporation and along with his army removes all the color from Chroma City (as well as the pages of the game manual). Not only do the Raydians have to watch as their beautiful city is drained of color by Leechbots, but Comrade Black also begins turning the citizens in Graydians. The citizens are left to live in a colorless world and be colorless themselves while under Comrade Black’s rule. Everything is turned upside down in the city and something needs to be done. Fortunately, a few Raydians were able to escape from Comrade Black’s control. The group comes together, knowing they must work together to save their city, and form the Color Underground.

The members of the Color Underground set out, with your help, to restore the color to Chroma City and free their neighbors from the control of the evil Comrade Black and INKT Corporation. Lucky for the group, one member, de Blob, has the ability to run through the city and restore the color and free the trapped Raydians, while fighting off the INKT Corporation. Blob is Chroma Cities only hope of avoiding a colorless future.

The game has four main characters, aside from Blob, that will help you throughout the game while also giving you extra challenges along the way. The first Raydian to help is The Prof who has an extensive knowledge of the Transform Engine to help restore certain areas throughout the city. Arty is all about restoring the color as it was in the city and can be found in certain areas of town requesting a special paint job to be completed. Zip is the speedy and sporty character that will help you get to different parts of the level in the quickest time possible. Finally, Bif, who offers a great deal of knowledge on the various enemies you will encounter while playing the game. Anytime new enemies enter the city, Bif is able to inform you exactly how to defeat them.

At the beginning of each level you view a short clip of what is happening in the city and then read a brief story while the level loads. Once you start the level you enter an area of town in desperate need of some color. After receiving some instructions and info on what you need to do, you set off to begin restoring color to the city. The process is quite simple, find a Paintbot, smash or roll over it and begin painting the city. Once you have a color, you simply touch anything and everything in the city. Everything from the rocks, grass, sand, papers on the ground, benches, buildings, etc. all need to be painted and Blobs task is to cover as much as he can with color. Each Paintbot increases Blobs paint points, which decrease as you paint the city. If you run out of paint, Blob will lose his color and you will need to find another Paintbot for more points.

Each level has a certain amount of sector gates which open up new areas in that part of town that need to be colored. In order to open those gates, you will need to increase your color energy by painting the town and completing challenges. After the final sector gate, your last stop - after coloring the remaining area of the level - is the exit pool. Once you reach the exit pool the level is finished. Aside from increasing your color energy in each level, you also need to be speedy because each level has a time limit and if you don’t reach the exit pool before time runs out, you lose a life and will have to start at the last opened gate with five minutes on the timer.

Each level has various items to collect along the way. The first item is different styles, after picking one of these up, Blob will paint surfaces with a new pattern. Next you have color energy bonuses which can be collected during the level, which help you to reach the goals of the level. Along the way you will also find extra lives to keep Blob from dieing and ending the game. After completing challenges and various other tasks, you will also find time bonuses, which can be a huge help as you find yourself getting closer to the time limit for a level. Each level also offers Transform Engines; however, you must increase your color energy before you can activate the Transform Engine. Once you have enough energy, you can activate the Transform Engine and restore life to the immediate area. Finally, you have Paint Tankers, which were one of my favorite items in the game. After attacking the tanker three times, it will give Blob invulnerability to all attacks and unlimited paint points, for a limited amount of time. Not only was this a huge benefit in the later levels, but while you are in this mode, Blobs color will constantly change. It was fun being able to roll through the level and paint things different colors without finding a Paintbot and the rainbow colored paint trail Blob left was always fun to see.

Unfortunately, not everything in the game helps Blob restore color. Along the way, you will face many hazards that try to stop Blob dead in his tracks. The first is water, which can be helpful or hurt you along the way. The INKT Corporation uses their ink against Blob, if he rolls through a puddle or is attacked by INKT, he will lose his color. Anything Blob touches will lose color and if he doesn’t find water quick enough, he can lose a life. The more paint points Blob has, the longer he can go, but finding water quickly is the only way to survive. So if Blob has been attacked by ink, water can be very beneficial. However, anytime Blob comes in contact with water, his color will be washed away and you will need to find more Paintbots to regain color and paint points. Not only does Blob lose his color, but the longer you soak in the water, the lower Blobs paint points get. INKT has also placed hot plates throughout Chroma City which will cause Blob to lose time. You can shake Blob to heal him and pick up any time bonuses that are still available. Another problem for Blob is the spikes INKT has placed in the city. If Blob rolls over a spike, he will lose paint points, lose all your paint points and Blob will lose a life. Finally, electricity has been put in various spots throughout the level. If Blob comes into contact with this electricity, he will lose a life. If you work quickly you can collect the life again, but you don’t have much time before it disappears. There are some areas where you can activate a switch that will temporarily disable hot plates, spikes and electricity.

While progressing through the levels, you will come across challenges. Some challenges require you to complete them before passing, but most are optional and are mostly there to help you increase color energy. There are four styles of challenges, the first are painting challenges, brought to you by Arty. When you come across these challenges, Arty will have you paint specific areas a certain color. While in the challenge, each item will have a flashing color to notify you of what color to paint that area. Next, you have the racing challenges. This time Zip will race you to a certain location - by following the markers - he will often help you to get from one area to another in the fastest/shortest route possible. Combat challenges come courtesy of Bif who will request you take out groups of enemies that take over certain areas of the city. The final challenge is landmark challenges from The Prof. In these challenges you will need to transform landmarks within the city, the Police Station for example, that have been taken over by INKT. For these challenges you will need large amounts of paint points, usually a specific color, and will need to slam the landmark. You will often release trapped Graydians when transforming these landmarks as well.

The controls for the game are quite simple. In order to move around, you simply use the nunchuk to control Blob. A very handy addition to the controls is the option to brake, by using the B button. When you are rolling around on top of buildings, the brake can literally save your life! The other main control you will be using is jumping to do this, you swing the remote downward. Unfortunately, this does not work perfectly, which can cause some problems since you are jumping quite often. Aside from these main controls, you also have the ability to target objects, attack targets, change a target, transform landmarks as well as some options to change the camera and point of view. Overall, the controls are easy to use and understand, but they are not perfect due to the motion controls.

While playing de Blob, I pretty much couldn’t help but smile. Going through a city, transforming it from black and white to being full of color was a lot of fun. The characters in the game were cute and fun to look at. Everything worked very well for the game and the story made you feel sorry for the Raydians and want to help them get their city back. At the same time, it made you want to fight against Comrade Black and the INKT Corporation. It was a fun little game and made for a relaxing experience. Instead of being tense while playing, I was very relaxed and it made for a nice way to finish a long day.

For the most part, de Blob was a pretty simple game. I generally didn’t have any problems completing the levels in the given time and having enough color energy. The overall concept of the game remains the same throughout and because of that, the difficulty doesn’t change too much. Generally, there were a few key points that made the levels harder. First, you had the challenges which would get a little more difficult as you progressed in the game. For example, in the beginning of the game, Arty would challenge you to paint all the buildings one color in a given amount of time. As you progressed through the game, Arty would start asking for colors that required you mix more than one color - green for example - or would require you to paint different buildings different colors. While it may not seem like a big task, some of these challenges were very difficult and were a puzzle to figure out. You may see what needs to be colored, but you have to paint in a certain order so that you don’t color a building in your path the wrong color. Add in the fact you had to mix colors and things could get pretty challenging. The main way the game increased difficulty was by adding new enemies. As you would progress, new enemies would be introduced. They would generally require more work to eliminate and/or come in swarms. Some enemies would require more paint points to attack while some even required a certain paint color. Fighting your way through all the enemies definitely slowed you down and added to the difficulty. In the later levels it could sometimes be frustrating trying to work through the level while also fighting off countless amounts of enemies.

The music and sound in the game was a lot of fun. The sound affects were perfect for the game and really added to the experience. It is somewhat hard to explain, but the sounds you make when you are painting, when you get splashed with ink, attack an enemy, fall in the water, etc. are all exactly what you would expect and worked very well. Unfortunately, there was no dialogue in the game. When they were speaking, the characters just made sounds as if they were speaking, but you could not understand it. Once and a while, you could understand a character saying “Blob” but that was about it. The music was also a fun touch because it also worked well with the game. Each level has music that is based on Blobs mood. This small little touch really helped to set the emotions for each level. Another great touch is that while you play the level, each color makes its own addition to the music. Each color has a different musical instrument tied to it, whenever you paint something with that color, it will add a sound to the music and change it up. It was a fun addition and something I didn’t expect.

Graphically, de Blob looks really nice. The environments are huge and have a lot of little details, which you have the ability to change while you play. Everything looks very nice in black and white, but really come to life and pop once you begin adding color. Each item can be painted in different colors; you can change the color, add patterns, etc. It was really impressive how much you could change the environment and everything still looked fantastic. After painting an area, it was so bright and colorful, with paint trails all over from Blob, it just looked fantastic! Unfortunately, pictures don’t do the game justice, but while playing the game it looks very nice.

If you will find a lot of replay value in this game depends entirely on your gaming style. If you like to collect things and complete games 100% then this game should have a lot of replay. I spent a good amount of time during each level, trying to make sure I painted everything, did all the side missions, etc. and I still didn’t complete the levels 100%. I imagine you could spend hours and hours of additional gameplay if you go back and try to complete each level 100% and get all the awards. Once you have completed the levels, you can replay them in freeplay mode, which is perfect for finishing the levels up. Even if you are not a completionist, you can go back and revisit the levels to try and better your time while gaining more of the awards. If you want to go back and play through the game to receive more awards, there is a lot of replay value there as well. There are also two additional challenges for each level. After you score a certain amount for each level you receive a medal, if you get gold, you unlock both, but if you only get silver you only unlock one. These challenges are usually only a few minutes, but add some fun additions to the game. I personally spent around 13 hours with the game to complete it. That was playing through every level, most of the bonus challenges that you could unlock with the level and doing a lot of challenges within each level, as well as replaying one entire area. If you aren’t concerned with completing everything in each area, the game could probably be completed in around ten hours, but if you want to, you could spend a lot more time with the game.

de Blob does offer some multiplayer options, but they are somewhat limited. You have the options of playing with 2, 3 or 4 players (each requires a remote and nunchuk) and have the option of a few different games. The basic concept behind the games is to paint the most buildings in the given time. One, for example, has all the players racing through the levels and you just simply need to paint as much as possible. Another, however, only allows one player to have color at a time and you must find the player with the color and steal it before you can start painting. Again, the goal is to have the most painted at the end of the game. The multiplayer games were fun and were a nice addition, however, if you are looking for a great game to play with 2 or more players this isn’t the best option. If you are just looking for a game that will offer some multiplayer options on top of the game, this may be a good choice.

While almost everything in de Blob was perfect, there were a few problems I had with the game. My first issue was that it was somewhat easy to get lost in the levels. While playing the game, you can find yourself lost at certain points. There were a few times when I died and had to start from a save point and couldn’t find where I was at. There were other times where I made the wrong turn and was in the same situation. When you get to a new area that has not been painted yet, everything looks very similar and it is hard to find your way around. It can also be difficult if you used the same color for an entire area. While there are some differences in the buildings, things can start to look very similar when you are trying to get to a specific point and know you have limited time.

I also noticed some issues with the difficulty in the game. As I mentioned above, the game was never too challenging but there were points when new enemies were added and the game became more annoying than difficult. There were times when there were various kinds of enemies, some requiring a certain color, and it was nearly impossible to complete extra challenges because there were enemies everywhere. The difficulty also was unpredictable at times. There was one level toward the beginning of the game where I had a hard time getting enough color energy to open the sector gates and almost ran out of time. During the rest of the game, I never had a problem and always had plenty of energy and time to complete the level.

de Blob also had some issues with the controls as I mentioned before. While the controls were pretty easy to use and learn, they didn’t always work perfectly, specifically the motion controls. In order to jump or attack an enemy, you had to slam the remote downward. I didn’t really mind this, it did feel like it was just added on to say they used the motion controls, however. My main issue with this was the fact that the controls didn’t always work. Sometimes I would have to keep moving the remote to try and get Blob to slam an enemy. When there are ten enemies around trying to cover you ink, the last thing you want is the controls to not work perfectly. Also, because the game is a platformer and you are doing a lot of jumping, this was a bit of an issue. But the game is pretty forgiving so it mostly resulted in some extra frustration, rather than deaths. I did have more issues with attacking enemies than jumping. For the most part, jumping worked fine, it was just a matter of getting lined up jumping properly. However, when attacking enemies, the motion was often not recognized and I would have to keep trying in order to attack the enemies.

The camera in the game could be a little tricky at times as well. I didn’t have as much problem with it as some other games I have played, but it was still enough to cause a few problems. Generally, if you would get into a tight space the camera would have problems, as well as when you went too quickly. When you were trying to move quickly for a challenge or were attacking enemies, it could be a bit of a hassle. There were just several times in the game where the camera couldn’t quite keep up and you either had to stop and wait or move the camera back. Again, it wasn’t a huge deal, but it could still cause for some annoying moments while playing the game.

For me, the biggest issue with the game was the length of the levels. I’m all for a long game, especially one I enjoy, because I like to get my money’s worth. However, the levels in de Blob could take around an hour to complete, even if you didn’t try to finish it 100%. I often don’t have an hour to sit down and play a game, so a lot of times I couldn’t start playing the game because I knew I couldn’t finish the level. Sometimes the levels felt so long it didn’t seem like they were going to end. It was always fun, but after 60 minutes, some of the enjoyment would start to go away. I had one problem in particular with the final level in the game; I had spent around an hour to get to the final area of the level, thinking (and hoping) that it would be somewhat quick and simple because of how long I had already played. However, that was not the case; I ended up spending nearly 40 minutes more just to end up dieing at the end. After nearly two hours of playing the final level, I had to start completely over, this was quite frustrating. As I mentioned, you have to gain energy to open the sector gates, which lead to different areas of the level. I think these points would have been the perfect spot to break the level up into smaller areas so that you could stop playing and come back. The levels were just so long and not having the ability to save the game and come back was not the ideal situation for me.

Overall, de Blob was a great game and was very enjoyable. There were a few minor problems, but overall, nothing really affected the overall gameplay to make it less enjoyable. de Blob is really a perfect game for just about any gamer. The experience is just a casual platformer, with some puzzle elements thrown in here and there. The extra challenges add some variety to the gameplay so it is always fresh. The game is a nice – easy going – game for older gamers, while still being simple enough for younger gamers. It is a fantastic third party game for the Wii, which is great to see since they don’t come along too often. de Blob can easily be found for under $20 and offers quite a bit of gameplay for the price. If you haven’t already given de Blob a try, I highly recommend finding a copy to play. With the sequel coming out next spring, now is the perfect time to give the game a try to hold you over until the next game is released.

Pros

* Great story that really made the game more enjoyable

* Fun graphics, music and sound affects

* Small touches that added to the game (storyboards while levels were loading, paint trails after Blob, etc)

* Didn’t have to finish every challenge to complete the level, you could play how you liked

* Lots of gameplay will keep you entertained

* Relaxing game to play, but still kept you thinking

* Tons of different things to do

* A lot of replay value with the extra challenges, modes and unlockables

* A bargain for under $20 with a lot of gameplay

Cons

* Too many enemies in later levels

* Easy to get lost, hard to figure out where to go

* Motion controls not always responsive

* Some issues with the camera during gameplay

* Difficulty would sometimes be un-balanced

* Sometimes the game could be more annoying than difficult with enemies and attacks

* Long levels with no ability to save the game and come back later

RATING: 8/10