I’ve been playing THQ’s new title De Blob for a while now over the past few days and feel its about time to write a fair and descriptive review of the game that perhaps is a little less biased than some of the other reviews out there. To clarify that statement, it seemed to me that many other reviews were written by people who were somewhat close to the game – or people who really wanted this to be an amazing game.
The Story: Essentially you’re a blob whose objective is to save the black and white city that lost all of its color to the evil INKT Corporation. Playing as De Blob, you must make your way through the city returning color and saving the Greylings by coloring their apartments and then adding color to them, destroying INKT propoganda devices, and there are some other challengs too. That’s really about it.
The Premises: As stated before you’re playing as De Blob whose mission it is to return color to the black and white city. How you do this is to attack these monster things that have colored ink in them (which you can also blend multiple colors) and just touch everything to turn it that color. Basically the game is a big puzzle.
The Controls: This is De Blob’s number one problem. The controls are awful. To jump it requires you to flick the wii mote and then you have to haphazardly guide yourself in air with the nunchuck’s analog stick all the while battling the less than perfect camera system. De Blob has a Kirby-esque feel when he goes airborne but has far less control which can add a lot of frustration when you’re trying to scale some buildings and meeting tons of Resistance. Not because the game is hard but simply because it seems to be a serious design flaw.
Thoughts: Overall De Blob is moderately fun in spite of the horrid controls. The premises is neat enough and the animations are pretty pleasing to look at. Yes, it can be fun at times to go around acting as a giant paint bucket but this alone does not seem to justify the $49.99 USD Price tag. Realistically the game is worth about $29.99. I feel the game got hyped up unjustifiably and that is why so many people have written such praising reviews. The music is quite nice to listen to and does add to the environment but if you’re anything like me – which you may or may not be – you will see it hard to justify having to flick the wiimote to jump when a simple button press would have sufficed. Perhaps I’m being to knit picky but to me I am greatly disillusioned in just how the game feels. Great concept, not so great execution. Overall I’d say the game is a 7.1 and that’s pushing it. If you’re really into this type of game pick it up, otherwise rent it or wait for a price drop.
The Breakdown
Graphics – 8.5
Controls – 5
Music – 9
Replay – 5
Concept / Story – 8
OVERALL SCORE: 7.1
