In the flood of familiar-looking JRPG's, Rock Band variants and futuristic cyber-soldier titles, it was easy to zone out on the E3 floor this year. I found myself walking around in a semi-daze, hoping for something different, funny, maybe a little absurd—and I found it. Brought to us by Twisted Pixel, the team behind the sleeper XBLA hit “The Maw”, comes a weird little platformer called 'Splosion Man. 'Splosion Man was easily one of the most ridiculous titles at E3 this year and because of that, one of the most refreshing. 'Splosion Man was originally announced this year as a joke in an April Fool's press release that asked the dev team, “[is it] A game rich in tapestry of story and depth?” The answer to which was, “No no no no. No. Just ‘splosions. We blow the whole budget on things getting ‘sploded. What the hell else do you need?” What the hell else indeed.
Fans of the idea were disappointed to learn that the announcement was a joke; until the next day when Twisted Pixel put out a second more eloquent, but still 'splosion-oriented press release that confirmed the game as a reality. 'Splosion Man is about a “deranged experimental creature made of fire and plasma” looking to escape his underground science lab home. Simple story, simple game concept; gameplay in a nutshell is focused entirely on navigating from one side of an environment to the other, solving puzzles and overcoming obstacles by 'sploding. The game is 3D but plays more or less like a side-scroller except for random instances when the camera zooms into close up and follows the main character for more dramatic effect. In a new take on platforming, 'Splosion Man does everything—jump, double jump, move faster, avoid dangerous objects and climb ledges—by repeatedly detonating himself. He effectively ricochets all over the environment like a fiery, giggling superball.
The controls in 'Splosion Man are perhaps the easiest in history. You move with the analog stick and 'splode with a button press. What's tricky is learning how to time your 'splosions right so you can get where you want to go. The game's levels are full of the usual turning wheels, moving platforms and big spikey things that can turn you into jelly, and the key is to moving fluidly past these is hitting a series of well-timed jumps and launch points that send you shooting comet-like across the level. In between these complex sequences you can gain points by randomly 'sploding yourself, thus taking out computer terminals and turning frantic scientists into various cuts of beef. Hey, don't look for maturity here – this is simple, gross-out fun on a psychologically ten-year old level. It's great.
As the levels progress, navigating them becomes increasingly more challenging. It cracked me up to do a Prince of Persia-like wall climb just by 'sploding, but getting past some of the obstacles required a patience and precision I don't have. On top of that, every few 'splosions, 'Splosion Man is briefly incapacitated. I didn't mind that so much since 'Splosion Man's funny little idle animations entertained me as he did goofy things like jumping jacks, marching in place or playing air guitar, but the whole “repeatedly missing complex jumps” thing was a little frustrating. Props to the dev team though for putting in frequent save points so at least the game doesn't become bogged down by tedium.
Upon release, 'Splosion Man will have fifty single player and fifty multiplayer levels. I only saw the single player demo at E3 but I was told that the four-player co-op mode increases the 'splosions quadruple-fold and adds to the depth of gameplay by forcing players to organize their efforts to get through the levels. The game's patter says it will be “chock full of hilarious cinemas seamlessly integrated into gameplay” and “epic boss battles” but except for a brief cinematic intro and a quick view of a huge robot boss, I didn't get to see much of either of those. No matter. 'Splosion Man will be available for download this summer during Microsoft's “Summer of Arcade”, an XBLA event that runs from July 30th to September 2nd. and I think it'll be worth checking out.
