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| Fuck this game |
God. What can I say about such a frustrating game? I have a lot I wanted to say while I was playing through it, but now I just don't know how to put those thoughts into words.
Ms. 'Splosion Man comes to us from Twisted Pixel, exclusive to XBLA. Now, to preface, I want to say that I highly respect Twisted Pixel as a game developer. I don't want to delve too deep into their history or anything, but they are pretty adamant about adding humor to their game, whether said humor has a place or not.
I got this game on a whim, as I liked the demo for both it and it's predecessor ('Splosion Man). It was also on sale, so that always helps. I enjoyed it's retro charm and I'd heard a lot of things about it and whatnot. I mostly heard the talk about how challenging it was, which is usually an open challenge to me. So I 'sploded right in and now I'm burnt out and withered.
First off, it's a game that considers itself to be a "puzzle game". While I would agree to some degree, I would have to say that someone needs to explain to Twisted Pixel what a puzzle is and what "time trial perfection" is. Braid managed both, and while Ms. 'Splosion Man starts off well, it takes a turn for the worse around World 2.
I need to say at this point that this game borrows a lot from games like Sonic and Mario. There were many times that I recognized a gimmick from one of those games and found myself wishing I was playing that. The way things spin and bounce and need controlled is reminiscent of those games. But like those classics, the jumping felt right and true.
Here, in the 'splosion world, you get three jumps until you have to recharge by remaining on the ground for a select number of seconds or by other means. The first jump never feels strong enough and you're always left floundering the other two jumps (which are even more unsubstantial) to no good cause. More often than not, I kept running into instances where my jumps just didn't work or she just wouldn't recharge in the short window of time I had been given for her to recharge.
See, where this game falls short is not in its challenges. It's challenging, let me assure you. This challenge, though, falls not on clever level design or exciting gimmicks or required fore though. It, instead, takes the challenging road of trial and error and perfect timing. Timed puzzles are one thing, but when you require platforms to have rotated X number of times while beam A has started moving left, it stops being fun. Then come the falling levels, where all you do is fall, and I was pretty much already tired of this game.
I'm not one to usually even mention the visuals as a detracting point, but this game deserves it. The main character is pink, so you'd want to stay away from pink and related colors for your environments, right? Wrong. She glows pink and gets lost so easily in a blue/purple/dark world. It's always so all over the place, half the challenge was keeping up with her. Not to mention the camera not only frequently zoomed out, but it also refused to show an efficient amount of space ahead of me, leading to more frustrating "challenge".
The last thing I want to mention is Twisted Pixel's "humor". What I found myself laughing at early on was quickly annoying and stupid after the tenth time. Take Ms. 'Splosion Man herself; she never shuts the fuck up. She dribbles on and on, quoting 90s songs, 90s shows, and a whole host of other girl cliches. My wife even said, "This game is horribly sexist," and she has never been one to even mention the battle for equal rights. Needless to say, when I looked and found out you could turn it off, I did. Immediately.
Something, however, kept me going. It was the idea, from some website, that this game had the best ending ever. I had to know without throwing away my hard work on Youtube, for some unsatisfying reason. But...shit was the ending amazing. Both my wife and I were astonished and were laughing through it. Just thinking about it makes me want to watch it again. Included is the original game's ending too, which I liked too.
Final verdict? Avoid it if you aren't the Super Meat Boy type, but watch both endings online. So wonderful.
Pros:
- Varied animations
- Lots of content
- Awesome ending
Cons:
- Hard as shit
- Not the conventional "fun" challenge either
- Colors could have been not awful
- Camera is nutso
- Level design is so bland and simple
