Blowing up and up and up in ‘Splosion Man

There’s a couple more great deals going on over at Xbox Live this week, and so I snagged ‘Splosion Man for 400 Microsoft Points. Yes, I’m using them up slowly and methodically, but I’d like to think I’m putting them to good use. Got Peggle and Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting as well, which I’ve enjoyed immensely and somewhat, respectively. Still need to blow my remaining 400 MP, but I’m not sure just yet. I might wait another week to see what new deals pop up…

But yeah, ‘Splosion Man. It’s a kooky game. You’re a dude that explodes. That’s just how you get around. Press A…and you ‘splode. Press X…and you ‘splode. I think you get it. Guess some scientists thought this would be a fun little experiment to play. Well, I think we showed them another thing:

Get Them Out of Our Schools (10G): Eliminate 10 Scientists and stop them from spreading their filthy lies.

So you use yourself as a self-detonating rocket to get around the levels. You can explode up to three times in a row before having to recharge your juices. The first few levels are rather simple, but they do an excellent job of teaching you some wall-jumping tricks and just how far ‘Splosion Man can leap. The main obstacles are the level pitfalls, with toxic fluid tanks below and closed off barriers. Getting around these is relatively easy to figure out, but still might take a few tries; thankfully, the game has frequent save checkpoints. I’ve only played about the first ten levels, and it seems like I have 40 more to go. Cool, cool.

Also, the sound design is phenomenal. Quirky, rock-n-roll tracks keep you moving through the levels, and ‘Splosion Man himself is just brimming with odd noises and bumbling mumbling. Love it. Reminds me a bit of the good ol’ days when main characters really had personalities that seemed to come out of the TV screen, such as Bubsy and Blasto and Earthworm Jim. Have not gotten to the song about donuts though that I read about many moons ago on the Interwebz, but I’m sure it’s fantastic as well.

Achievement-wise, it’s decidedly odd. There’s the usually “do X amount of times,” as well as one for beating the entire single-player game and collecting cake in each level. Then there’s these:

Master of Contrls (10G): Change the controls around in the “Controls” menu.

Get Over Yourselves (10G): Select “Credits” from the “Help & Options” menu and watch the whole thing.

Like I said…odd. Either way, exploding over and over again is right up my alley. I’m looking forward to it later.