'Splosion Man Review

You love those first few Sonic games that were fast and not at all bloated? You love explosions (Who am I kidding, of course you do)? Well both of those are what you get when you play XBLA's 'Splosion Man.

'Splosion Man doesn't really have a story. Basically you are a science experiment that gets loose and have the ability to explode (hence the name) on command. Game play is one of the freshest anyone has seen in a long time. It is a 2-D platformer but has an interesting twist. To get higher, you don't jump, you explode. You can explode 3 times before you have to recharge. Recharging usual is done by landing and waiting but sometimes you will find explosive barrels or fire shooting out of a wall that will help you recharge without landing thus making you fly through levels.

Now this sounds good but where this game shines is in level design. Some levels are meant for you to run through really fast while others are puzzle like where you have to eliminate scientists to get to other areas. What is also icing on the cake is... well cake. Every level has a cake in it that is usual in a weird spot but some you have to get to fast before scientists lock off the area. Although these cakes are not needed to beat the level, they do add a nice bonus to your end of level score. The game has 50 single player levels, 47 have cakes leaving the other 3 levels bosses. There is also another set of 47 cakes that can be collected in CO-OP mode with up to 4 players but I haven't played that yet.

Now just these here makes this game worth buying, but there are still 2 more things. First is how “Splosion Man” has personality. Sometimes where you are running he will spread his arms out and start acting like an airplane while making engine sounds and other times he will act like monkey and make those sounds to. When waiting for platforms, he may take out balls and start juggling and other times he will just start making random quotes. One of my favorites he says is “Get to the Chopper.” The final thing is that every level has a score based on things destroyed, cake collected, and time which is them compared with everyone on the Leader Boards. This makes this game have a lot of replay value.

Bottom line is that this game costs $10 and for what you get is actually about $25 at least of content. There is no reason for any platform lover not to get this game as long as you have the XBOX 360.