Game preview: Splosion Man (Xbox 360)

Think of the funniest evil laugh you can, now put a few explosions in between the non-stop laughter. Somewhat like getting the hiccups when you are laughing. But exploding 'pops' instead of 'hics'. That is roughly what the soundtrack of Splosion Man (Read Gamespot preview) sounds like. Of course there is the background music and the other ambient sound effects. But the prominent foreground continuous laughter and mini explosions (as many as three strung together at one time) are the fun thing.

Now add an orange creature to the screen. Orange not as the fruit, but orange as a fiery man who is ready to explode, quite literally. He (or she if you please) is the protagonist. A ball of flaming lava in human form with amazing expressions to go with his (or her) persona. The product of an experiment gone wrong, with only one aim in life, revenge, the Splosion Man is nothing like your average hero. Quite the villain actually. His only motive is to find the scientists who caused his change from a mere human to a serial exploder and well, 'explode them' to tiny bits. And there is no dearth of the creative ways in which you can effect this. You can explode near the scientist and blast him to pieces, or explode near a wall that falls on him and crushes him to pieces, or explode while running to push the sliding floor to crush the dude against the opposite wall, well, you get the idea. The idea is for orange man to find white coats and turn them blood red.

Sounds like a gory game. In concept, it is. But the visuals and the sound effects and the gameplay is nothing like that. Its actually a lot of fun in an cutely evil kinda way. Platforming is such an old concept that getting it to be interesting is quite a challenge. In recent times, there is 'Trine' (Read Gamespot Review) and 'Splosion man' that promise to be interesting and visually appealing.

The game is pretty simple. Get from one level to the next by solving simple platforming puzzles and getting rid of all scientists on that level. At your disposal is the basic direction keys to run around and the super special talent of exploding yourself to give yourself some extra momentum. You can use this exploding momentum while on the ground or against a wall or even mid air. But beware, you can only explode yourself three times in a row. Though once you are back on the ground or sliding down a wall you will recharge pretty quickly. So, now string your masochistic urges and time them to explode yourself across seemingly impossible gaps. or climb very tall structures. Pow, pow, pow, and with every pow you will go a little black. The graphics are very detailed and pretty amazing.

Though I have not played this myself yet and I cannot buy the Xbox 360 just for just this game, I am keeping an eye out if a PC port ever comes out. If the developers are reading this, count me in for a port. Bwahahah 'pow' hahaha 'pow' hahahaha 'pow... pow... pow'.
Technorati Tags: Splosion man, Xbox 360