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

"Limbo" sets the bar high

Limbo is an Xbox Live Arcade game from Playdead Studios. It is a side scrolling, puzzle game with platforming elements, a fantastic art style, and gameplay that not only looks fluid, but feels fluid. The movement of the main character and the transitions between animations really make this game flow. It's simplistic controls make it easy to play, but still challenging to beat.

Before I talk about its difficulty, I want to say that I am a fan of easier type games. Really hard games are frustrating to me and in my opinion, can take away from the "fun". I know many gamers really enjoy tough challenges, but I'm not really like that. So if I say something is really hard, it may not be as difficult to those who thrive on challenges and can breeze through puzzles quickly. That being said, I usually judge a game's difficulty by whether or not I have to consult the internet to figure something out. With Limbo I had to consult the internet one time. I'm told however (by friends who happen to love extremely hard games) that this one instance in Limbo is kind of stupid hard in the sense that it's just really easy to over-look (they also had to look online for this one). In conclusion, other than one or two instances, the game is comfortably difficult for me. It was hard and challenging to the point where I could figure things out after some thought with only a few moments of literally being stuck.

Moving on! This game is special because of its art style. Its look and its world are something fresh and new. Creepy as it may look, the game is quite charming and cute; although the deaths are pretty harsh and gory at times. At one moment it can be cheerful and other times horrifying, but never actually "scary". I'm not one for "jump out and scare you" moments, and you can rest assured that this game really doesn't have anything like that. The music also helps to propel the game's overall mood and all around it was just very well done.

The game is somewhat short, and can probably be completed in one sitting if you're really invested in it; but that's to be expected with an arcade game. Re-playability is questionable. I know people that have played through it a number of times just because it's so much fun, but some people might just play though once and stop considering it's the same game with the same puzzles each time.

Story wise I was a little disappointed because the game holds a lot of mystery but nothing really pans out. You don't really learn anything about what is going on. It's still a very intriguing world and, to a point, it leaves you with a sense of closure, but I was left wanting more from the story. Other people are ok with this however. They enjoy having things left open ended. It's all in how you look at it.

All in all, this game is pretty amazing. I'd say it's one of, if not my favorite xbla game so far. I definitely recommend it to everyone (unless you're a little kid).

Pros

• fluid feel and fun to play
• clever puzzles
• beautiful and different visual style
• makes you want to play it over again
• right for price

Cons

• mysteries left unsolved
• one spot that's hard to solve because it's easily overlooked