'Splosion Man

Here’s a title off the Xbox Live Arcade, I think it’s a lot of fun and well worth the Microsoft space bucks(800 points AKA 10 bux). On the Richie Raw scale I’m gonna go with an 8/10.

The Good – Here’s a title that channels the old school, as in it’s a side-scrolling platform game. You play as a science experiment gone wrong, your body is a constant burning cinder as you try to get through huge laboratory style levels. As Splosion Man, you have to jump and try to solve your way around platform puzzles, kinda like some of the old Sonic The Hedgehog levels, except it’s not jumping, you “splode” to send your character boosting from one spot to the next. There’s about 50 levels or so that will keep you busy, for the most part the levels are quick, lasting no more than a few minutes. Some are even thrilling in that you get thrown around at insane speeds wondering how the heck did you make it from point A to point B, others are just brain teasers, some are very timing based, all keep you on your toes. So yeah, some solid hand-eye cordination is gonna be a must. Nice, sharp, colorful graphics. The music is quirky and reminiscent of the old Looney Tunes shows, the game’s got humor in that style as well, sometimes making me laugh out loud. Once you get on a roll of beating levels, it feels quite satisfying.

The Bad – The difficulty level….for one, it’s uneven. It goes from a fun challenge, to unfair, pull your hair out type of hard, back to fun challenge again. Maybe my hand-eye coordination isn’t tight enough, but sometimes I feel the timing of some jumps don’t exactly match to when I press the button, it’s very frustrating at times.

The Ugly – If you die alot of times in a level, the game offers you the “Way Of The Coward” option, which instantly skips you to the next level…ugly? When you start that next level, your character is wearing a tutu.