Ms. 'Splosion Man

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

“The Fancy Pants Adventures” Allows for Both Fancy and Pants

After graduating from high school in 2007, I really got into flash games. My family had just bought a new Dell that ran wonderfully and could run then-current computer games. Of course, besides trying a few of those, I also really got into flash games. The one that stood out the most, however, was Brad Borne’s “Fancy Pants Adventures”, which, at the time I started playing, had just seen the release of its second world. As a flash game of the time, it was so impressive for its flowing animation and large amount of content. Imagine my surprise when, three years later, World 3 is finally being released and packaged with 1 and 2 for Xbox Live Arcade?

I will swiftly state that it was worth the admission price of 800 Microsoft Points ($10). The pants are still fancy, and the adventures are even grander.

World 3 follows the adventures of Fancy Pants Man, as he journeys to save his sister from a band of pirates who wish to make her their captain (a little backwards and odd, yes, but charming, nonetheless). Through the world’s 11 different levels, the player will make Fancy Pants Man run, jump, and flip through many colorful locales. As per previous installations to this series, the world itself is presented as “sketch-like,” with Fancy Pants Man who isa stick man with parachute pants. Regardless of its simplistic art style, the series continues its trend of downright fancy animations for its titular character, with new abilities such as swimming and light weapon-based combat thrown in. Fancy Pants Man has the ability to run up walls and other free running talents, and you’ll find yourself using his innate parkour skills to collect all of the squiggles in a single level.

Each level has one ultimate objective; find the end of the level. Getting there, however, has its challenges; from enemies like pirates and ninjas to spiders and rats, along with a specific number of collectible “squiggles” (much like Sonic’s rings) and challenge rooms to complete, each level is pretty packed with content, all of it sprawled throughout the stage. If you can find, collect and complete all of these objectives, then you 100% complete the level, which is the primary draw for replayability – making this a good game for people who like to complete something all the way through.

Speaking of replayability, a large draw for replaying the game comes from the rewards you win to customize your own Fancy Pants Man at the end of every level. While there are 140 different collectibles, you’ll hardly find 25% of them by the time you complete the game. It then becomes tedious to obtain the rest, as you’ll find yourself running through the same levels just to complete them and get a new reward. Not to mention, many of them even seem arbitrary, as the tiny graphics make some of the props indistinguishable and there are still a few that I can’t even figure out what they are. Not to mention that despite the character having many animations, there was very little care added to the collectible hats, as his default hair animations still leak through with some motions, which was something that was honestly rather disappointing.

The largest complaint I have for this game is its level design and lack of a difficulty curve. It was challenging is the strangest places, making it feel very inconsistent. On top of that, I have to admit that later levels feel a bit pointless and very tiresome. I found myself quitting when I started a new level because I was just not into the idea of scouring a new level for pointless collectibles. Unfortunately, the cutesy story and the way it plays out becomes rather grating, as the humor doesn’t really seem to at least reach a demographic I can understand. As a tripe complaint, there were also a few spelling errors and some of the text was just cheesy, resulting in a story that I was frankly tired of by the end.

Fortunately, this game really shines when you find a few friends to play 4-player co-op. The game’s controls have a pick-up-and-play feel to them, and playing with friends reminded me a lot of N+ (another flash game-turned XBLA game). There exists the silent competition to win the most squiggles yet while still working together to look fancy.

If you’ve got some points to spare, I highly recommend this game, especially if you’re a classic platformer fan. It’s a pretty good precursor to a summer that isn’t promising many big name releases. This game really feels fluid and is great in smaller pieces, with the innate attention to detail a great benefit. Looking past the small faults, this game is best played with friends. Always remember to run fast and run fancy!

Pros:

• Great classic-feeling platformer
• Large amount of content
• Fluid and entertaining controls and animations
• Awesome local and online co-op!

Cons:

• Level design feels uninspired
• Collectibles are ultimately pointless
• Difficulty is inconsistent
• Tasks for each World can feel overwhelming