PixlBit

de Blob is back for more paintin' and liberatin'.

A couple years ago, an innovative and intriguing Wii game hit the market from THQ. de Blob was its name, and it brought some amazing music and fantastic platforming gameplay to the Wii. While the game was very good, it did suffer from some small issues, particularly with the jumping which was executed via waggling. Additionally, there was some tedium in terms of gameplay. de Blob: The Underground is a follow-up to that game, which seeks to improve the issues that were a detriment to the original.

I started my play session of de Blob: The Underground, fittingly, in an underground area. These new underground areas are on a 2D plane and they are far more platforming and puzzle driven. The same principles of the game apply; players must collect paint canisters, paint the structures and defeat the enemies. Once I reached the end, I popped back out into a full 3D world reminiscent of the first game. As it turns out, the underground areas have been added in place of the waggle-shake used before to overtake a bigger stronghold of the enemies.

Once I was out in the 3D world, it was clear that the game was not very different from the original de Blob. Players still must paint buildings and defeat enemies through the use of paint power. Some new on-screen indicators have been added to give players a clearer picture of what their paint supply is doing, and the enemies in general are a bit more aggresive, forcing players to defend themselves by attacking first, subsequently working in the attack mechanics a bit more. Furthermore, the platforming itself has been significantly tightened, resulting in some much better gameplay and some more engaging platforming challenges.

The final major difference between the last title and this one is the new control option that mostly supplants motion control with a button press. As such, jumping is relegated to the A button as is the homing attack in this new control mode. At first I found the mode to be awkward due to the attack mechanic. I'm not sure if the final version will have a mixed control scheme, but I would have much rather seen just the jump replaced, allowing players to still flick the Wii Remote to attack.

Overall, de Blob: The Underground is shaping up nicely and should be a welcome addition to the Wii, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 libraries.

Editor's Note: For reference, the only version playable on the show floor was the Wii version, so it's unclear how much better those versions look and if they perform as well as the Wii version.