Quarter Circle Forward: Painting the Town with De Blob 2
RobinRecently, I have desired a break from my typical slew of Action Adventure, story based, RPG element assimilated games. A much needed breather from difficult moral decisions and complicated characterizations for a simpler means of fun. So I picked up De Blob 2 for the Xbox360 and I was pleasantly surprised, but then the true disappointment hit me.
;)
On the exterior, De Blob 2 is a platformer with a twist. Instead of simply getting from point A to point B, you have to paint things along the way to advance. It is mostly 3D, but it throws in a couple sections of 2D platforming in each stage to be trendy, and there are power ups that can be leveled up to add extra gameplay “depth.”
But buried beneath the mostly cookie cutter gameplay of De Blob 2, is an incredibly addictive musical feature. Each color in De Blob has a different distinct “sound” or instrument giving the game a brilliant synesthesia experience. As you traverse the environments and paint the town red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, and brown each instrument joins into the melody resulting in the gradual composition of a funky tune. For example, painting a bench the color red will create a groovy trumpet solo over the underlying melody. Or splattering a building with brown produces a cool DJ record scratch. It is simple, yet addicting. You begin with a quiet and empty black and white city canvas and slowly, everything you touch is brought to life with color and sound.
