It's a simple, fast paced, colourful 2D platformer. The premise is simple, you are a little orange guy who was some kind of science experiment and wants to get to the exit of each level or defeat one of the game's three bosses. Splosion Man's natural state is on fire, and he can run left and right, and "splode" (explode). That's all he can do. Every face button on the joypad is mapped to "splode", and Splosion Man uses his explosions to jump, blow up scientists and furniture, to deflect bullets, set animals free, and throw switches.
There are naturally lots of obstacles, scientists throwing switches to make barriers, robots and guns attacking you, etc, as you try and make your way through each level. Also, Splosion Man can only "splode" three times before he needs to charge up again (either by standing on the ground or holding a wall for a while). So, the game can be quite tricky.
There is also a bonus item on each level - a huge cake - for people to hunt down and collect, if they like doing that sort of thing. I made it my mission to collect every single one on single-player mode before finishing the game!
The game to me is just pure fun. I really do love this game, to me it seems the perfect 2D platformer.
Things I like:
- Only one button! It's as though I'm back in the days of the arcade with a joystick and one button, or grasping an Atari 2600 joystick in my hands. It's so simple and even though the one button performs so many roles, I never have contextual use issues. All it does is "splode", and the objects in the world interpret that however they see fit.
- The controls are friendly. You tend to only need wide movements to move, platforms are laid out generously so that jumping isn't so difficult that you won't get things nailed before you give up out of frustration.
- Timed sections aren't really timed. Sometimes you'll have a level containing ever rising cold water - instant death for Splosion Man! So you need to run through these levels.... but I did notice that sometimes the water will seem to "wait for you" before getting higher, in certain parts. It's just friendly like that.
- The graphics are nice and bright, platforms and switches are nice and clear, there are never any foreground / background visual problems for me. It looks great. Splosion Man does cute little animations when he's moving or standing as well. He seems such a sweet little kid as well as a complete psycho blowing up scientists everywhere.
- The game makes me laugh. Splosion Man's cute little animations are funny, the way scientists blow up into pieces of cooked meat that look like they're from a delicatessen counter is funny, Splosion Man's erratic speech - muttering weird things about meat between levels is also kind of funny. The ending credits segment was hilarious!
- The sound is great. The soundtrack for the single player and multi player modes were written by two different composers but both suit the game well. There's also a funny song about eating doughnuts. The soundtrack is available for free download on the official website, which is a nice gesture. I like the jazzy tracks, they sound like they're from a 1960s spy film or something by Henry Mancini.
- There are loads of levels. 50 in single player mode spanning three whole worlds, then the same again in multi player mode. (NB: entirely different levels, 100 in total)
- Loads of Leaderboards. Each level has a best time leaderboard and a best score leaderboard. There are also the overall best score and best time leaderboards, so there's always reason to retry levels to try and better your scores, if you like that sort of competition.
- Level design is really tight. You usually know where to go, and the levels seem really well thought out.
- Hardcore Mode. When you finish the single player game, you unlock Hardcore Mode, whereby you can go through the game again, but this time there are no in-level checkpoints and enemies / lasers kill you in one shot. I like that, because it's not a case of "we made the game harder by adding more enemies", it's just a case of "the game was perfect as you played it, we're not going to change it - to prove your mastery, you have to go through playing a perfect game".
I'm still battling through Hardcore Mode on single player, I'm on level 2-6 as of this evening.
I've hardly made a dent in multiplayer mode really, I'm only on level 1-11; the game goes really weird if a player is suffering lag; the platforms appear in different places for each player and it seems really glitchy. Fortunately there's local multiplayer! ^_^
When I finished the game, as well as the end credits, it told me about a competition which the developers (Twisted Pixel) are setting - whoever gets the best time on level 3-8 between September the 6th to the 12th will get a trophy and a signed poster. :) I like the sound of that! I don't think I'll be anywhere near good enough to win though, I'm in the thousands on most of the leaderboards.
