Splosion man - just great fun

Again I played the demo of this and found it good but put off buying it for various reasons – mostly because I wasn’t sure how good it was to play through. My main issues were the potential lack of challenges and variety in the game. I was a little bored the other day and decided to buy the game as a potential relief from my first person shooter addiction.

‘Splosion man – so good he blew up thrice

Since then I haven’t been able to play anything else – somehow explosion man just nails it on the head and I’m not sure why. It’s massively addictive as my wife will testify to by my lateness in coming to bed. The game is simple to play as you press pretty much any button to explode and you get a maximum of three explosions to jump with. Your explosion can explode items, people, machines etc. and is primarily used to jump from platform to platform and bounce of walls, suddenly it’s the most important thing in the world to get to the next level, something that can be difficult to find in other major releases. As Mr.Cowell says ‘whatever ‘it’ is you have it in spades’ and ‘Splosion man certainly does – your constanlty faced with new challenges.

‘Splosion man – Challenges

'Splosion man screen shot

Somehow again the game gives you a unique blend of challenges – just as you think it’s all over and you have reached the end of it’s surprises it comes up with some rising water or a set of star wars like crushing doors. Other types of mad scientists, robots guns and other elements appear on a regular basis and all this just keeps you coming back for more.

In Conclusion

It’s just a good concept done very,very well the graphics work and never seem to stutter or seem out of place and more than this they are just fun – the explosions look great, the added detail to items that explode is just great – cogs from robots particularly my favorite. On more than one occassion I’ve laughed out loud at some of the actions of explosion man himself and just love him juggling when leaning against a wall.

Developers take note Twisted Pixel have got it bang on here – one of the most enjoyable arcade games, not totally frustrated me at any point was different and engaging on a regular basis and was just totally fun to play. There previous game the Maw was a promising start to developing for the xbox and I await with anticipation for the next game which will be on the top of my ‘must buys’ when it is released.

Rating 9.5/10

link: http://www.twistedpixelgames.com/

I don’t understand the rational on the prices of digital downloads and now xbox comes in with the ultimate in pointless hard disk space – the downloadable game – on the face of it a good idea – I like the arcade games I don’t have to get off my arse to change disks and they are generally excellent value for money. So the idea of full games downloadable to my hard drive had me seriously thinking about an upgrade to a larger capacity drive. Then Microsoft revealed the games and the prices for there games on demand these included:

Battlefield: Bad Company, Bioshock, Oblivion and Call of Duty 2

Now lets take Call of Duty – it’s a whopping $29.99. A quick bit of research and you can find the game for $1.98 used on Amazon. So lets compare like to like – a new copy? Thats minimum effort just looking on amazon resellers. So what do I get fir my $29.99 errrr lets face it less. No manual, no box – heh no disc just 5gb worth of bandwith from Microsoft. Surely Infinity Ward dont care – this game will soon be two issues old for the company I’m sure hard copies aren’t exactly flying off the shelves? So why not offer these games at $10 or so?

It’s the same argument for mp3’s why buy an album off itunes for £0.79? I get go buy the cd for the same price and make a digital copy for my ipod and still have the hard copy, in many cases you can get the album cheaper. Why not turn the tide – artists at least get something for your effort, time and talent – sell your music direct for £0.25 a track £2.50 and album – then I’ll buy more downloads until then I’ll stick with cd’s and shop bought games.