Blinx the Time Sweeper is a good platform game which enables you to control time
Blinx is a Lynx who works in the "Time Factory" This is where the lynxes provide time to the many worlds in their universe. When time glitches occur, time crystals appear. The Lynxes have to sweep up these time crystals before they turn into monsters. The story goes that Benito leader of a bunch of pigs, The Tom Tom gang, have stolen time crystals from world B1Q64 (great name huh?) and is trying to sell them to other worlds for a lot of money. However these crystals have turned into giant monsters. The Tom Tom gang have also kidnapped the princess of that world. Blinx refuses to let that world just be forgotten about and runs off to save the day.
The game is a very slow paced platformer which consists of nine uniquely themed worlds. There is a night time town, a frosty mountain, old temple, ect. Each world has three stages and a boss. This may sound like a short game, but the difficulty is insane towards the end, so it will take you a while to finish it. Your goal is to defeat all the time monsters. Blinx has a vacuum cleaner type object called a Sweeper. You use this to suck up bits of Rubbish like old cogs, barrels ect. This is your ammo. You then shoot the time monsters with this ammo. Once you have destroyed them all (there will be a checklist at the top of the screen, so you will know if you have missed any) you can then find the stage's exit and advance to the next level.
The big gimmick in this game is time controls. Time crystals can be found when you defeat a time monster or just lying around the place. If you collect three crystals of the same type you can get a time control. Collecting four will give you two time controls. You can only have a maximum of three time controls at once at the start of the game, but you can buy things at the shop which will enable you to have more. I reccomend having at least one of each (except fast forward) towards the end of the game. You never know when you'll need them. Anyway the controls are like that of a video player. Pause will stop everything except you for 10 seconds, making certain obstacles easier to dodge. Slow works like pause except everything slows down as opposed to stopping. Rewinding lets you rewind everything around you and is used to restore broken bridges. Record is for puzzles such as the sea-saw and the doors which require two buttons to be pushed at once. You record yourself doing one set of actions and then they are replayed as you go and do something else. Fast Forward is useless - you never need it. Everything speeds up including monsters and obstacles. On a plus note you are invincible during Fast Forward. And Retry is self explanatory, it's your life count.
You can also enter a shop on the level select screen, where you can purchase things which will give you an extra life slot so you can have four as opposed to three. Time bowls let you have more time controls. You can also purchase new outfits for Blinx. However this is a novelty and has no effect on the game play. What's annoying is you don't keep your old outfits, you have to buy them again. You can also buy stronger sweepers, that can suck up bigger objects.
The game starts off well enough, but the difficulty goes from easy, to normal, to hard, to insane. One hit and you loose a life (regardless of what hits you) Worlds 8 and 9 are just insane! The levels aren't TOO bad, they're do-able if you have a good selection of time controls. But the bosses are so hard. I'll say this, I have not completed the final final boss without cheats. And I figured the level skip trick out by accident. (Hold Black and White on the controller simultaneously) Yeah the difficulty becomes insane so be prepared.
Overall the game play is fun. Flawed and could have been better. But a satisfying experience none the less.
Graphically the game looks nice. Blinx has a furry effect and all the buildings look nice. My only grip is that everything looks shiney. The music is pretty cool. There are some tracks which are really just so great to listen to
Control is a bit awkward because Blinx is slow. He also has a flip trick when jump and the control stick is pulled to the side. This flip trick is often executed by accident when trying to jump out of the way. And the flip gets him killed... Apart from that I have no problem with the set up.
So Blinx may be insanely difficult, but it is a decent game, and you should enjoy the levels overall. It's a pretty decent game, which I reccomend for fans of platform games. The Time Control gimmick is pretty cool. If you like the sound of it, go try it.
- Milesprower2k9 Original Reveiws