The XY Review with Ian

You are a blob. You are a plain blob. You are a plain blob with a job. Paint.

It’s blob a job week here in Prisma and lucky you, you’ve been tasked with the tedious chore of licking colour all over this town because Bad Papa Blanc and The Inkies (an awesome name for a 60s soul band) have stripped and drained every tint from every building and every inhabitant and you, who should be sponsored by Dulux, have to restore it to its former glory.

Poor little blob and I clashed from the very start because the camera positioning and control systems are awful! In some games, it’s because it feels different or unfamiliar and sometimes people don’t like change, but with blobbing blobface the second, you don’t get used to it - it wants to default in front of you and as you’re operating in 3D, you need to see where you’re going, not where you’ve been.

I've heard you can jump, wall surf and cannon jam as well, but these moves are also woefully inconsistent and it feels completely out of your hands whether or not you make said jump/surf/jam.
The switch from 3D into 2D mode is respectable and feels similar to Super Mario Galaxy 2 (it also draws inspiration from SMG2 for its co-op play, as the 2nd player acts as an invisible crosshair that can shoot paint at you or other things ). This enables you to operate slightly differently, providing some relief with alternative puzzles and something else to do than just lollop around and play paint tag with a town that’s not playing back.

My second can of beef with bertie blob is that the game play and level structure soon becomes fearsomely boring and repetitive or if you’re trying to put a positive spin on it; it’s a meditative and compelling adventure for the ultra completionists. The levels are also long, long, long and the save points always bring you back earlier than expected so you’re often having to re-do 3 or 4 minutes of painting before you get back to where you were.

There is one thing which I love about this video game and this is the original and engaging soundtrack which is worth exploring in some detail. It correlates to both the quantity of paint in the town (more paint = a more complex musical pattern for you and blob to bounce along and listen too) and the colour of blob when you paint things (brown = a 80s scratch groove, while the other colours bring out jazzy riffs, a little bit of classical and lots of others musical styles in between). This simple, yet complex, motif is a piece of innovative engineering and will no doubt be used again in the future by other publishers. I can just imagine a discordant orchestra as you enter thieves landing in Red Dead Redemption if you’re totally feared or a sweeping magisterial string section when you help save a horse from being skinned. I take my multicoloured hat off to Blue Tongue Entertainment for this; they’ve achieved something special here.

De Blob 2 is an ok game, with an interesting concept, incredible soundtrack design but ultimately falls down on the repetitiveness of the levels, the terrible camera control and it’s certainly not the game for you if you’re the one in twelve men in the UK who are colour blind.

I see a red blob and I want to paint it black.

The XX Review with Tracey

It’s lovely blobbing along. Or smashing, skidding and splatting along if you’re De Blob in the latest technicolour offering from developers Blue Tongue.

Blob isn’t your likely hero. He doesn’t have any weapons, he doesn’t even have a nose, only the hint of a mouth, blank elliptical eyes and pointy ears that he can pull off and juggle with. Though he doesn’t say much, the overall game is packed with personality as seen in the humorous, slickly animated cut scenes. The aim of any hero of course is to save the world and all the blobs in it. Comrade Black and his army of Inky one eyed minions have drained the world of colour and music. The trees are bare, monochrome propaganda billboards advertise dull Blanc Cola, grey tanks fire ink blots whilst the imprisoned population of Raydians are forced to become Greydians and wear pale metal egg suits. It’s oppressively grim. Enter Blob, here to brighten up their day – literally. Accompanied by his pals including a flying cat robot called Pinky who tells you what to do a lot in a delightful blobbish language “blab de la lab Inky lob de Blaaaaabuh”, your task is to create enough colour energy to transform the levels and thwart the evil Inkys plans for world domination. In order to complete objectives, you fill your big belly up with paint then roll it over buildings, bridges and boxes.

You also slam switches and destroy Inky guards either by squishing them or by using your special new super-charge move which hurtles you into them. You can be one of 7 colours, 4 of which are created by mixing paints. Often you have to use a specific colour to flip a switch or paint a house so there is some planning and skill involved to get the correct colour to complete your task. There are also underground caverns which are 2D side scrolling platform puzzles featuring metal wrecking balls and gravity defying corridors which break up the 3D action and give your brain an extra workout.

It all sounds so simple and it is. I can understand Ian’s initial assessment that this is rather repetitive and boring but as you progress through the game, the techniques of eliminating Inkys become more diverse (mind you don’t bounce on the spiky helmet Inky – ouch!!) and require a deft touch whilst painting every last inch of the world becomes harder as there is less paint available, tricky narrow ledges to traverse and paint stripping water (which you can bet is surrounding the one area left to paint) to contend with. It’s got the hugely addictive balance of not only having a classic story about beating the bad guys and saving the world but of having plenty of collectable items that aren’t hidden enough to be totally beyond the realms of impossibility but that do provide a challenge, keeping completionists happy. Of course collecting things means you unlock gallery artwork, movies, Inky info and extra levels for the split screen co-op mode which is nice.

The 12 levels are more imaginative than Ian gives them credit for (my favourite being the industrial TV factory with hot plates and moving platforms that you turn into a sparkling theme park with balloons and rides – yay) and the joy of seeing grass and animals and flowers spring up in the drained world plus the ever evolving soundtrack is fabulous – it’s instant gratification for logically and methodically blobbing onwards. Yes I did shout at the screen because Blob often gets stuck on walls thinking you want to slide when you only want to jump (why use the same button and stick combination to move around normally for this special move?), yes I did curse at the paltry amount of time on offer when I harshly re-spawned after dying in battle against a giant inky monster and I’m still to make my mind up if I like Pinky telling me every little thing I have to do along the way in order to beat the clock or whether I would prefer to find my own way without a time limit.

Yes I did think the camera was a bit wild sometimes (you can hit the left shoulder button to get it behind you but when things get hairy, you simply don’t have time) and I got a bit frustrated that you aren’t ever really in control of the latch-on jump system and can end up changing colour or hitting the wrong baddie at precisely the wrong time. Yes I did think the levels went on for ages too but the little details like the funny animal noises when you blob over them, the happy cheers from freed Greydians, the patterns you leave as you splat buildings and the chance to explore and create your own soundtrack are all superb and kept me going.

I admit there are many elements about De Blob 2 that should make me dislike this game but I just can’t. It’s charming and funny with a political note for older players featuring subtle references like the iconic single Raydian stood in front of a row of tanks. It’s musical with glorious Paradise Island bossa novas or Prism City funky disco beats. De Blob isn’t a combat game, it’s bright and a welcome relief from other bullet fuelled games on the market which leaves you feeling good. Don’t just paint the town red, paint it any colour you like and rock on whilst you’re at it.

Reviewed on Xbox. Also available on Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS and PlayStation 3.