de Blob 2 Updated Hands-On

The original de Blob was a charming Wii platformer that stood out, thanks to a jazzy soundtrack and a creative use of colors. No, it wasn't that the world around you was extraordinarily vibrant; quite the opposite. You began the game in a dull gray city, with your job being to roll around in paint and restore color to the entire town. It remains one of the better third-party (read: not developed by Nintendo) platformers on the Wii, but the sequel is branching out with releases on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, in addition to Nintendo's console. With most of our de Blob 2 coverage focused on the new high-definition versions, we thought we'd take a look at the Wii version to see what's in store for those loyal to the series' original platform.

Well, as it turns out, there are a scant few differences when you compare de Blob 2 on the Wii to the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions. The basic control scheme for maneuvering de Blob around the city--rolling in paint and bopping enemies on the head--is more or less the same. The major difference in de Blob 2 is that you no longer need to flick the Wii Remote upward to jump; now, you simply press the A button. The only time we had to waggle the Wii Remote was when we were overrun by a cluster of those little inky bad guys--you simply shake the remote and nunchuk at the same time. In short, de Blob 2 for the Wii is not a game where you're going to do much motion gesturing at all.

We'll avoid going into detail on all of the new features coming to de Blob 2 because that's territory we've already covered with the first and second previews we've posted on the game. However, the short version is that developer Blue Tongue is aiming to create a more varied game from the original. This includes things like 2D side-scrolling areas, different objective types, and a wealth of new power-ups. We played a couple of different levels, including a university district where the student and faculty population had been doing some ambitious physics research, resulting in a number of gravity puzzles for us to solve when we were in that part of town.

All in all, de Blob 2 looks like a nice follow-up to the well-received original. The core gameplay--rolling a little amorphous hero around in paint and then using that paint to color buildings in strategic ways--is still very much intact, as is the eccentric sense of humor and jazzy soundtrack. You can expect to see all versions released on February 22.