One of the coolest parts of E3 is scouring the show floor for a few diamonds in the rough. More often than not, a couple lesser known games shine a light just as bright as some of their higher budgeted, omnipresent big brothers. This year, Scribblenauts, Trine, and Bit.Trip Core were sizeable blips on my underdog radar, but Twisted Pixel’s ‘Splosion Man was enough to render fellow Digital Chumps editor Steve Schardein completely insane. After spending some time with ‘Splosion Man, Steve, typically an articulate and mild mannered individual, was reduced to incoherent sentence fragments and infinite strings of synonyms for “awesome.” At the time I couldn’t understand what the hell he was talking about (that would come later, when he calmed down enough to bang out some impressions), but I knew for sure that his unbridled exuberance was a clear indicator of ‘Spolsion Man’s potential. Two months later, and I, too, am a believer.
You got a lot of Sploding to do
An otherwise ordinary individual has been rendered mentally, chemically, and physically unstable in typical experiment-gone-horribly-wrong fashion. Or, more simply put, you’re a bat-poop-crazy walking nuclear bomb. From a gameplay standpoint, this grants you the ability to “splode” at will. Basically amounting to a feverishly animated jump, you can splode up to three times before your splode energy runs out. You’ll get it back by standing for a few seconds or sliding down some walls, but walking, sploding (which gets progressively shorter with each splode), and wall jumping sploding are your primary means of travel. From a pure gameplay perspective, ‘Spolsion Man isn’t all that mechanically different from side scrolling platformers of yesteryear.
What stands out is its style; ‘Spolsion Man’s hook lies in its aesthetic and, by default, its charm. A cross between a three year old and the pyromaniac guy from The Muppets, the titular splosion man is one of the most endearing and highly animated characters of the year. He’ll randomly burst into a karate kick as he flies across the screen and hold out his arms and make airplane noises as he walks. Press up against a wall and you’ll see him take a time out and juggle his eyeballs, or any number of random emotive animations. ‘Spolsion Man frequently branches into the absurd, from the dumbass donut song that always plays when you pick up a fat scientist to the barely audible squabbles of the game’s three bosses, it’s consistently funny the whole way through (and the credit sequence is one for the ages). Like Portal a few years ago, ‘Spolsion Man really goes to show how a good game can become a great game with the assistance of some clever writing.
Of course it also helps that ‘Spolsion Man is wickedly clever in both mechanics and level design. Your splode is can be augmented by randomly placed bombs that shoot you across the screen, blast doors that have to be conquered, rockets that have to be evaded, rising water that’s always sure to make your life a living hell, death mazes of fury, frost that drains your splode, clever conveyor belts, giant stalking robots, and everything in between. From the outset each challenge is dealt with individually, but as the game progresses through fifty (!) single player levels, they’re tethered together in ways that leave little room for error.
Don’t mistake the previous sentence as an observation of a design flaw, the game’s controls are as tight as a vice, but the difficulty ramps up fairly quick. ‘Spolsion Man is extremely competent in its mechanics and it definitely feels like Twisted Pixel played these levels hundreds of times to get everything right, but, especially once you arrive at the 3-X worlds, the game starts getting ridiculously hard. Thankfully, if some barriers are too high to overcome, you’re granted the ability (after a few deaths) to skip to the end of the level. Your points will be trashed and you’ll have to wear a pink tutu until you beat another level, but it’s a much kinder penalty than quitting the game.
Splodin’ Makes me feel Good.
Merely finishing a level isn’t the only goal, as there are a handful of items things to tally along the way. Sploding into the scientists that populate each level not only makes their bodies crumble into prepackaged meat products (actually the entire game might be mistaken for a meat circus); it also nets you some bonus points. Hidden birthday cakes are also abound in each level, but the longevity of the game lies in completing the levels efficiently. ‘Spolsion Man is clearly built for speed runs and, if the par times and online rankings aren’t enough, it looks like Twisted Pixel is even doing a few date-specific contests, and, if The Maw (their last offering) is any indication, some downloadable content is inevitable.
The eight or so hours I spent completing all the levels was enough to justify ten dollars, but the ‘Splosion Man also features forty unique multiplayer levels. You and up to three friends can work together to scour levels designed for a cooperative approach, though I found the theory to be much more attractive than the reality. When I gave multiplayer a shot I had to resort to playing with random people who were mostly interested in just screwing around and griefing every attempt I made at progression. I know Steve enjoyed what he played at e3, so I’m fairly sure that, if you play with friends instead of idiots, ‘Splosion Man’s multiplayer offerings likely offer just as much entertainment as its single player levels.
