Splosion Man review
Earlier this year developer Twisted Pixel released The Maw on XBLA to mixed reviews and success, but fear not, they’re back, this time with Splosion Man, an XBLA title that’ll certainly blow you away — pun definitely intended.
In Splosion Man, you play as a scientist after an accident has rendered you inhuman — where “inhuman” means that you can explode at will and destroy everything around you. It’s a platform game that requires lots of jumping around, lots of puzzle solving, and most importantly, lots of explosions. You have basically one skill besides running: exploding. When you explode, you propel into the air, which means you’ll be exploding a lot and it also means you can preform some sick triple jumps as well. However, your explosions are limited to three at a time. Afterwords, you need to cool down a bit before the wrecking continues.
While you’re able to destroy everything around you by exploding, the accident hasn’t just made you a walking bomb, it has also made you a bit crazy, which is hilariously illustrated by the movement an idle actions of your character, who at all points seems to be a bit… crazy. Because of your destructive powers, fellow scientists (who are all fine and dandy, unlike you) will try to stop you. 
But fear not, you can simply blow them up, and in return, get some snacks which you can indulge yourself in. The action is mostly comprised of jumping from point to point and the occasional puzzle, however, many of those aren’t too difficult and most rely on timing them correctly as the main way of clearing them. The camera is quite odd though, while perfect most of the time, it’ll zoom in sometimes on special occasions, which would be great if it wasn’t for the fact that lots of the view gets blocked out, and you don’t really know what else is going on. But if you fail at anything, you have infinite lives in Splosion Man, and furthermore, there are plenty of checkpoints to make sure you don’t lose too much ground.
The levels are aplenty of and they’re short and sweet, which means you’ll rarely get bored during the 5 hour single player campaign. However, the 50 levels are somewhat repetitive at times, but nevertheless fun to run around and just blow up everyone and everything. And once the single player campaign is over, you can play with up to three friends in campaign mode, which uses all new levels. The art style of the game is very cartoonish, much like Team Fortress 2, but Splosion Man has its own distinctive feel and personality. It’s one of the best games to be released on XBLA this year, and you should certainly check it out if your into platformers, it’s only $10 and well worth it.
The Good:
Plenty of levels
Great humor and personality
Original throughout
The Bad:
Levels can get a bit repetitive
Camera can get a bit annoying
Overall score: 8/10