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Blinx: The Time Sweeper Review |
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Blinx: The Time Sweeper
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After winning various E3 awards, and receiving quite a bit of positive press, many gamers were understandably excited about the arrival of Blinx on the Xbox. Blinx promised to take platform gaming to the "4th Dimension", and in using the Xbox hard drive; it does a fairly good job of introducing new elements into the genre. However, in introducing new ideas into an established genre, there is always the chance of failure or at least poor execution, and while Blinx doesn't fail on all counts, certain gameplay elements keep it from the level of a truly great game.
Blinx is just one of a race of cats who's apparent duty in life is to keep the elements of time running smoothly. Armed with nothing but a couple of sweaters, evil green eyes and vacuums of various sucking capabilities, Blinx takes it upon himself to save a world that has been overrun with baddies and robbed of it's Time. Blinx' job is to single-handedly sweep up the excess crystals that form when there is a rift in time and do so before they turn into monsters. However, since this particular world has had it's time stolen, there are already a ton of monsters you'll encounter and be forced to dispatch as Blinx. The levels themselves are varied in their design quality. Some are great and very challenging, and some are poorly designed and are even more challenging because of that fact.
The camera is buggy, but not as bad as some I have played before. One particular gripe is the way it attempts to keep both you and the enemy in boss battles in the same screen, and in doing so, causes you to lose track of any ammunition or other enemies you're trying to suck up with your trusty vacuum. This would be fine if moving the stick would disengage the auto frame and allow you to swing the camera at will, but unfortunately it doesn't. It's something that could have been easily fixed, but just wasn't although the reasoning behind it's persistance is understood.
The level of difficulty is another issue, that will engage some gamers and piss off others. Up until the fourth level, the game is almost embarassingly easy, but once you hit level four, the difficulty takes a drastic spike, and it becomes much harder to complete the levels in under the alloted 10 minutes. This isn't necessarily a point against Blinx, nor is it one for it. If anything it's a draw. What does seem a little misguided is the way Blinx can't take a hit or even a soft brush against an enemy without giving up a life. A life meter that gradually wears down would make more sense, as it grows frustrating trying to not touch enemies when there are 3 or 4 surrounding you. Given, you can purchase more lives in the shops, or collect hearts to gain lives in each level, but a standard life meter would make the game much more enjoyable for most gamers. Also disheartening is the auto-aiming when you attempt to fire an item at an enemy. The auto aim is so prevalent, that regardless of which direction you may be facing or running, many times, the projectile will veer off sharply in an attempt to hit an enemy you not only weren't aiming at, but isn't even in your field of vision. None of these issues make the game unplayable or even entirely unenjoyable, but they are nagging problems you'll likely run into many times during the course of the game's levels.
The enemy AI is not all that smart, but passable for a plaftormer. Some enemies will stand still until you get close, then throw something at you while remaining standing still, only to take about 10-15 seconds to throw another one, others will attack but usually give you ample warning before they do, so it's easy to get out of their way, and yet others just slowly creep their way towards you until you hammer them into oblivion with your collected items. You start out being only able to suck up 5 small items into your vacuum, but thru collecting gold items, and cashing in your collected items at the end of levels, you'll be able to purchase upgraded vacuums and bombs as well as extra lives, and extra capacity for your vacuum.
The time manipulation feature is executed well enough, and its really where the game shows the most innovation and potential. You'll have all the same features as a VCR, Rewind, Fast Forward, Pause, Record, and Slow. Rewind, Pause, Record, and Slow all are very useful and fun to use, but the Fast Forward seems only in place to fill the slot or possibly just to get to the goal in time to beat the clock. For the first few levels, the game will prompt and suggest how to complete the puzzles, and which time power to use, after which the solutions are still pretty obvious. the trick is to collect the right crystals to earn yourself the powers necessary to finish the level. Many times, the correct crystals are the ones in the most abundance in the level, but it's pretty easy to collect the wrong combination of crystals, and not have the correct powers when the time comes to use them, and you'll have to restart the level or let time run out and begin again.
I couldn't help but think the developers could have used a little more time for fine tuning the basic elements of gameplay and brought it up to par with the level of attention paid to the time manipluation feature. It is a fun game, but it has it's moments when that fun is interrupted by some flaw that likely could have been fixed before it's release and brought the game up to a higher level.
Blinx is an Xbox exclusive game, and as expected, the game sports some impressive graphics and animations. Surprisingly enough, parts of the game still don't seem entirely polished. Many of the environmental textures are murky and flat, and the Bosses in particular seem much too simplisiticly rendered for a game designed on the Xbox hardware. However, Blinx himself looks great, and is complete with fur shaders and great texures in his clothing. He moves fluidly, and somehow manages to look sinister and cute at the same time. The objects in your environment are also well rendered and all look great while being sucked into Blinxy's vacuum. The first thing I noticed when firing up Blinx, is that it's extremely cute... and I do mean CUTE. My girl thinks the little furball is adorable, and even consented to watch me play it for a while and root me on. This is a girl who is not a gamer at all, so that does way something about the visual appeal of the title in general.
Blinx does not speak. Well, he does speak, but only when sliding down a wall, where he lets out a single meow, and when jumping into the goal gates at the end of the level. The enemies don't speak either, with a few exceptions, unless it's during a cutscene, in which they speak what I can only describe as Atlantian. Being developed by a Japanese company, I was trying to fit it into Japanese somehow, but being able to speak Japanese, I couldn't make sense of the words they speak. Luckily it's all subtitled though, so understanding isn't an issue. The music is standard Japanese platformer fare, light and airy electronica, with some catchy riffs thrown in when Boss Battles arise. Not a whole lot is done with the 5.1 option, but we're not talking FPS's here, so not much was expected in that respect.
Blinx is a tough game, particularly in the later levels, where the difficulty is so high, and allowing the gamer to go back to any previous level and collect gold or secret cat medallions is a good idea and works well for a platformer such as this. Some of the levels you'll want to play again, and others you never want to see again if you can avoid it, so replaying the entire game thru more than once isn't too appealing. At least not as much as replaying just the levels you enjoyed, and forgetting the rest. No multiplayer, and no online component, although that's forgivable considering the genre.
I know a lot of people including myself were very excited about Blinx, and I did enjoy playing it, despite it's frustrations and shortcomings. I don't know how often I will play it again however, or if I will even end up keeping it much longer. It's a cute, often fun game, and one that is at least worthy of a good week long rental just to try out the new innovations and make up your own mind about it.
Review By: JakeT
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