Nintendo fans, the wait is over!  de Blob offers one of the most unique platforming experiences ever and delivers hours and hours of Van Gogh-like mischief.  Painting everything in sight may seem like a simple task, but the developers at bluetongue have come through with an adventure that’s sure to give even the hardcore gamers a challenge.

The story for de Blob starts with the I.N.K.T. Corporation taking over Chroma City and sucking all the color out of the entire city.  With the entire city in dull grays, in comes your character, de Blob.  You are part of the Color Revolution to bring color back to Chroma City.  With the help of other de Blob’s unique abilities and other color revolutionaries, you must once again restore Chroma City back to a colorful utopia.

When you first load up de Blob, you’ll notice that a lot of care was put into developing not only the game, but the whole presentation.  All of the menus retain the paint-splattered style of the game, and you can even scribble on the menus using the Wii remote.  All of the games cutscenes are beautifully rendered and blend nicely into each scenario in the game.

The first area of the game starts off with some basic tutorials that walk you through things like Paint Bots, using water, and jumping.  The paint bots are, yep, you guessed it, robots filled with different colors of paint : )  Each paint bot has one of 3 colors: Red, Yellow, or Blue.  From these base colors, you can mix and get Orange, Green, Purple, or Brown.  

Each paint bot fills up your paint energy which also determines how big de Blob grows.  You can hold at most, 100 paint points at a time.  Every time you paint something, your paint points naturally go down, so you must continuously replenish as you progress through each area.  The controls are very intuitive and each tutorial starts when you first need to use each move.  To jump, simply swing the Wii remote down.  All the rolling is done using the joystick on the Nunchuk.  You can lock on to both enemies and paint bots using the ‘Z’ Button.  ‘A’ gives you a really nice compass that points out where certain colors of paint bots are located and each objective or challenge.  The ‘B’ button is a brake, while the d-pad controls all the camera work.  Oh, and use ‘C’ to center the view behind de Blob.

And now let’s dive into the gameplay.  Each ‘level’ in the game is split into different areas separated by gates.  The goal of the game is to proceed through each area raising your color meter in order to unlock each gate.  You’ll be given color points based on how many buildings/objects you color, enemies you stomp, landmarks you convert back to color, and even chaining jumps together between buildings adds more color points.  Basically you want to color as much as you can and as diversely as possible.  The more random purples and oranges you throw in, the better—-because a town that’s all Blue, isn’t much better than a town that’s all gray ; )  You will also get a lot of color points based on the challenges that you complete.  Challenges range anywhere from coloring buildings a certain shade, racing along a given path, defeating a certain number of enemies in an area, or converting large landmarks such as I.N.K.T. police stations back to the original building.  Each challenge is given a Star rating of difficulty, 1 star being the easiest, 3 being the hardest.  

Also, an important thing to remember, is that there is a timer for each area and for each challenge.  Challenges will be anywhere from 30 seconds to 4 minutes depending on the difficulty.  And there is a global timer that counts down during the entire level.  

NOTE: It’s very unlikely you’ll run out of time, because there are time bonuses everywhere in each level.  Some are hidden on buildings, while others are obtained by completing challenges on the first try or rescuing the people of Chroma City.  So don’t worry about the timer, you won’t run out of time unless you’re just standing still : )

As I said before, de Blob is a game that can be played as a simple painting game or going through collecting every bonus item in the game.  That’s what I love about this game, it’s really up to you!  If you want to go through and beat each level with the fastest time, go ahead.  If you’re like me and want to paint everything you see, and 100% the levels, that’s fine too.  As far as game length goes, is really depends on how you approach the game.  If you rush through the levels, you could probably beat the game in about 12 hours.  If you take your time and beat all the secret missions and unlock all the multiplayer modes, then you’re looking at a really deep experience that will last for many, many hours.

There is also an entire ‘Free Paint’ mode that gets rid of all gates, enemies, and time limits!  After completing a level in Story mode, simply switch over to Free Paint and sit back and relax.  Go anywhere in the level and paint everything to your heart’s content.  It’s really a blast just to cruise around without worrying about challenges or enemies walking around.

Multiplayer (2-4 player split screen)

The multiplayer in de Blob is one of the most frantic and fun of any Wii game out there.  Colors are flying everywhere as you and a friend compete to paint the town the color of your character.  In multiplayer, each person selects a color and that is there color for the whole match.  There are still paint bots to collect, but your own color will only appear on your screen.  There are a number of levels to unlock, each of which mirror their single-player counterparts.  There are also 8 different multiplayer modes to unlock.  I’ve been rushing through the game so I’ve only unlocked 3 modes: Paint Match, Blob on the Run, and Blob Race.  Paint Match is simply who can color the most buildings in the time limit.  You can also steal your friends buildings by coloring over theirs.  Blob on the Run means that only one blob can be painting at a time.  Everyone else becomes death blobs to catch the person with the paint and take the paint from them–very similar to a Gladiator type mode of other games where only one person can get points at a time.  The Blob Race is like Paint Match, but each building can only be colored once, so color the most buildings before they’re all gone–my personal favorite so far.

All in all, the multiplayer is a lot TON of fun!  With the promise of more unlockable levels and modes, there’s a lot of replay value in both the single player and multiplayer.

 

Visuals: The visuals in de Blob are a welcome change to most 3rd-party games on the Wii.  Everything is vividly detailed and the bright colors really give the game a style all its own.  Each building that you paint has its own texture and detail–i.e. some look like graffiti while others have a 60’s psychedelic feel.  The characters are nicely detailed and the 3D cutscenes are integrated very well into the game’s progression/storyline.

Gameplay: The gameplay in de Blob is a real treat!  Controlling de Blob is extremely fun and intuitive.  You’ll find yourself wall-jumping and linking color combos left and right in no time.  One of the most satisfying things about playing is the option of how you progress.  There are hundreds of things to find/collect/paint in each level, but you could simply play through then come back and unlock the secret missions later.  It’s a completely casual game, and a completely hardcore game all at the same time!

Replay Value: Replay value is bursting at the seams in de Blob.  Each level has an entire list of achievements including painting every tree, building, landmark, and rescuing every single graydian (the townsfolk).  It took me over an hour to paint 100% of a level, and I still didn’t find every Style upgrade.  The multiplayer modes add even more value with the ability to play up to 4-players in paint-rolling mayhem.

Fun Factor: de Blob is pure fun!  The story mode can be just as much fun and relaxing as the Free Paint mode once you get the hang of things.  Maybe it’s the bright colors, but de Blob really stands out amongst every other Wii game out there.  

Wii Innovations: The Wii controls are used very well.  The only motion controls in the game are used for jumping and also pointing the Wii remote at the screen to look around.  This isn’t a bad thing tough, because there are a number of Wii games that can often times ‘force’ too much motion control.  de Blob offers just the right balance to make the experience both fun and engaging.

Verdict: de Blob is a must-have for every Wii owner’s library.  The game’s combination of fun, unique gameplay, and instant appeal to both casual and hardcore gamers makes it one of the best Wii games out there.