Ms. ‘Splosion Man

Elegance in design is when a game (or indeed anything, whether natural or man-made) relieves itself of all unnecessary components in order to evolve into the ultimate, purest version of itself. A perfect example of this philosophy can be seen in Twisted Pixel’s superb XBLA-exclusive ’Splosion Man. With its endearing cartoony tone, the game had elegance in spades, building a solid, enjoyable and substantial game around some fairly simple core ideas.

Fast forward two years to the present day, when Ready Up’s resident Twisted Pixel fanboy – that’ll be me, by the way – came to be excitedly booting up the sequel, Ms. ’Splosion Man, eager to see if lightning could not only strike twice, but be once again bottled and spliced with the developer’s inimitable personality.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcDcxW5KVf8[/youtube]

Following on after the events played out in its two year-old predecessor, Ms. ’Splosion Man takes players back into the world and laboratories of Big Science as the scientists celebrate the capture of the creature they inadvertently created: the bonkers, loveable and, unfortunately, somewhat combustible ’Splosion Man. During their party, though, an accident involving scientific equipment and champagne leads to the creation of the eponymous lead you play as, seemingly a hyper-active love child of Space Channel 5’s Ulala and Tex Avery, with the energy of a child who’s had a little too much caffeine and expressive movement that at times effortlessly mimic parts of Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies’ routine.

Gameplay takes the form of a 2D platformer utilising a handsome 3D engine, with the central mechanic being that of your ability to ’Splode, which – much like the jump button in the original Sonic the Hedgehog – acts as the primary way of interacting with the world around you. ’Sploding is your way of jumping, your offensive and defensive capabilities and your way of using environmental objects. You can ’splode a maximum of three times before you need to recharge, achieved either by landing on a platform, creating friction from sliding down a wall, or coming into contact with particular elements of the stage.

With the same singular type of ’sploding mapped to each of the controller’s face buttons – again like that jump button in old-school Sonic – the complexity comes in how the game mixes the rules of ’sploding with its level design to exhilarating, and often confounding, effect. Combining the raw arcadey appeal of travelling incredibly fast with the puzzling elements of later levels gives the game a great sense of depth and progression, while always staying true to its core mechanic.

However, this being a sequel, there are of course new mechanics and modes introduced, which mostly build upon the solid foundations already established. Making welcome return is the superb multiplayer campaign for two-four players (local or online), consisting of 50 levels that are utterly different to the game’s already substantial 50 level single player campaign – with each mode also having its own ending.

The mind-boggling ‘2 Girls 1 Controller’ mode (which I’m told is named after an apparently well-known internet meme… I’ll have to ask the cool kids, I guess) combines multi and single player into its own distinct form, with one player simultaneously in charge of two versions of Ms. ’Splosion Man, controlled by one analogue stick and one shoulder button each for movement and ’sploding, respectively. It’s as brain-bending as it sounds, takes some getting used to, but is brilliant to watch other people try.

Also making its debut is the ghost replay mode, where you can race against your personal best time, or download the ghost of anyone on the leaderboard to find out how the best of the best manage to trounce the rest.

Meanwhile in-game, new enemy types rub shoulders with returning favourites, gorgeous new environments are accessed via the Super Mario World-esque overworld map (complete with alternate routes and the promise of secret areas to find), and zip lines enable Ms. ’Splosion Man to traverse sections of the game’s largely linear levels at great speed, often requiring split-second decisions later in the game to avoid instant deaths.

Speaking of instant deaths: despite its elegance and wonderful sense of fun, Ms. ’Splosion Man is, at times, bastard-hard, its difficulty curve climbing at a worrying rate early on, and the spacing of checkpoints occasionally proving a little mean.

Another complaint is that, even when played on a big TV, the action is sometimes hard to keep track off, mainly because the in-game camera very often feels like it is a little too far away – something the original never had a problem with – but also because there are times in the first 15 or so stages where Ms. ’Splosion Man blends into the background a bit, solely because of aesthetic choices.

Also, in an unfortunate move similar to Twisted Pixel’s approach with Comic Jumper, the game feels like it front-loads a lot of its most spectacular moments, presumably to make that free trial explosive enough to inspire a purchase. While the game does climb its way toward similar climatic moments, there are times when, upon restarting at a particularly tricky checkpoint for the 20th time, you cannot help but hope your perseverance will be rewarded. (It most certainly is, by the way, and to say any more could ruin some of the brilliance).

Still, despite the difficulty spikes and, at times, slightly uneven pacing creating a few bumps along the road of excellence, Ms. ’Splosion Man is incredibly easy to recommend. It is delightfully silly and, importantly, very well-made, playing solidly and rarely making you feel that an in-game restart wasn’t your fault. The quality of the audio and visuals is superb, with the animation clearly a labour of love for all involved and the middle section feeling like Twisted Pixel have created their own tropical equivalent of Green Hill Zone.

Also of note is the game’s epic dedication to pop culture references, populated largely by Ms ’Splosion Man’s frequent quoting of both girl-centric pop songs and chick flicks (ranging over the last 30 or so years right up to the very present), as well as less frequent but equally welcome nods to action flicks of the past, with a heavy focus on everyone’s favourite former Governator and one incredible (and very much deserved) swipe at Capcom. While I’m sure the typical Ready Up reader is savvy enough to identify most of these references, I was both equally impressed and horrified with myself to recognise a quote from a very specific scene in the obscure and atrocious (ahem!) ‘classic’ 80’s musical Teen Witch.

Rounding up this comprehensive package is a suite of unlockable goodies that would seem generous on a full retail release, let alone an XBLA title, including concept art, music, behind the scenes videos, gamerpics, dashboard themes and Avatar awards.

While all the added bells and whistles may very slightly dilute the wonderful elegance of its predecessor, as a progression of that brilliance and, in Twisted Pixel’s own words “closer to what we wanted Splosion Man to be but didn’t have the time for”, this follow-up is certainly worthy of your time.