Xbox 360
Something is rotten in the city of Chroma. The evil I.N.K.T. corporation has outlawed colour, and turned the city and its residents a dull and lifeless shade of grey. Only de BLOB and the Colour Underground can save them from a future without colour.
de BLOB is essentially a action platfomer, with de BLOB, an anthropomorphised paintball, arriving at the start of each level small and colourless, before increasing in size and vividness by breaking I.N.K.T Corporation paintbots. Each time de Blob destroys an enemy, not only does he/she/it increase in size, it takes on the colour of that bot. This colour can then be transferred to the buildings, roads and other structures of Chroma City, garnering the player points and energy. Breaking different colour bots will give more paint points, and will mix and match de BLOB 's colour accordingly.
In each area there are a number of optional challenges that can be completed. These generally involved painting things a certain colour, racing through checkpoints or destroying a set number of enemies in a set amount of time. These tasks also award energy, allowing players to restore colour to an entire sector and clear the level.
Despite being developed by a third party, de BLOB has a pick-up-and-play quality that feels quintessentially 'Nintendo'. Also, the basic concept is well executed (even if it is a rip off of Jet Set Radio), and the game both looks and feels at home on Nintendo's little white box.
There are, however, two glaring flaws which detract from what is otherwise a well crafted game. The first is the camera, which moves according to its own peculiar and varied whims, none of which are a desire to show the player what is actually happening. Whilst it is possible to re-centre the viewpoint, this only works for a few short seconds before it wanders off to do its own thing again.
Worse is the jump mechanism which, for reasons one can only assume made sense to the paint-fume-addled designers at the time, is gesture based. That's right, every time you want to make de BLOB jump (which, let's face it is likely to be quite often in a platform game) you need to waggle the Wii-mote up and down. Note to THQ: this is not how you make best use of the Wii's unique selling point. Trust me on this one.
Unfortunately, as being able to both jump with ease and see where you're jumping are somewhat vital to a platformer, the effect is catastrophic. In fumbling these core foundations of the game, THQ have shattered the experience, and there just isn't enough gloopy tangerine paint in the world to cover over these cracks.