61 Frames Per Second : de blob

iPod Games, You're Doing It Wrong

Derrick Sanskrit — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:00:00 GMT

Like it or not, the iPod/iPhone has become a gaming platform. There are tons of statistics out there and I'm not going to bore you with them, but the fact is a lot of people are making games for the iPod and a lot of people are downloading and playing them. This post is not about educating the blog-reading public so much as a friendly word of advice to the game developers out there.

iPod game developers, remember what your platform is. No matter how Apple dresses it up or the media hypes it, the iPod is first and foremost a portable music player. The iPhone is just an iPod that also happens to make phone calls. So please, when you want us to play your games on our personal music players, do take care when shutting off our music.

Just using the examples that are currently on my iPod Touch, the biggest offender is probably Scramble Live, Zynga's Boggle clone. There is no music in the game and very minimal sound effects, so why does clicking the icon automatically shut off my music? Are you worried that listening to Nas will distract me from finding words, and if so isn't that really more of my concern than yours? Scramble is clearly designed for short bursts of casual play, so every time I play a round on the train I have my music interrupted, then end the game and go back to start my music all over again. Not cool. The same goes for THQ's de Blob. The game does thankfully use the same wonderful music as the infinitely better Wii game (sans player interaction) but it asks you upon loading the game if you want sounds enabled AFTER it has already stopped the music. Why offer sound options after turning off the preexisting sounds? Just set sounds to "on" and I'll mute my iPod if I don't like them. Or better yet, let me paint the town red to the Replacements!

Some games get away with it because the music is so integral to the gameplay, as you'd think it should be on an iPod game. Newtonica, for example, has an incredibly simple gameplay mechanic in merely flicking a sphere around to catch crystals in the correctly colored quadrants, but without the bright and lively electronic soundtrack it would be dreary and impossible to play for more than ten seconds. Radio Flare plays like a 2D side scrolling Rez by targeting up to four obstacles or enemies at a time and blowing them all up in beat with the music. Neither game has a soundtrack I'd listen to on its own, nor particularly interesting gameplay, but the play and the audio element work perfectly together to make them compelling. Both games force my iPod to stop playing music, but they would be impossible to play set to any other music, so it's okay.

And then there are the games that simply get it right. The critically acclaimed RolandoEdge, a game that I've pretty much raved about on here before, is exactly the same story. Great original soundtrack, but no problem replacing it with your own mp3s. Aurora Feint, Sway, Adventure, all great games, fun for long stretches and short bursts alike, with wonderful sound effects and the ability to keep playing your own music while you play the game. has a fantastic original soundtrack, but it's more than happy to let you listen to your own tunes instead.

With OS 3.0 coming this summer - promising access to the iPod's media library within other apps - we can look forward to greater interaction between games and the user's existing music and photos (and hopefully a legit portable version of AudioSurf), so I ask you, iPod game developers, please, think twice before shutting off my tunes. If you have to interrupt Super Furry Animals, at least make the audio component an important part of the game.

Facts and Figures: Why Do Gamers Care So Much about Sales Charts?

Cole Stryker — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 04:00:00 GMT

I got to thinking today about why gamers keep such a close eye on sales figures. In a completely unscientific experiment, I determined that Kotaku dedicated just under 200 posts last month to sales figures. Comments for these posts generally range from 50-100, so obviously some people care about sales figures enough to argue about them in an online forum.

We at 61FPS haven't made much of an effort to keep our readers updated on sales figures, as there are plenty of other places that do. We are men and women of overwhelming spiritual integrity. As John argued in December, there is a time to talk about sales, when astronomical numbers threaten to bring about tectonic shifts in the industry. But for the most part, why are people so hung up on sales figures?

I think part of it is laziness. On a slow news day, NPD numbers allow bloggers to phone in a quick and easy post that requires almost no creative input and is guaranteed to piss a few people off. A quick copy and paste job does the trick. I think this is especially true when bloggers resort to regional sales figures. Why do most readers care about how Gears of War 2 is doing in England? If I were English I don't think this would particularly interest me anyway.

But I think it's also related to something we touched on in one of our Roundtables, wherein I discussed how gamers rally around preferred consoles and games, developing a "personal brand" around their consumer behavior. It seems as though fanboys think that if their favorite game succeeds, they succeed.

Lastly, I'll offer a reason that seems to be the most legitimate. People like to see good developers rewarded with high sales and poor developers punished with low. I loved hearing that De Blob sold well enough to warrant a sequel. It doesn't make me like the game more or less, but high sales for games I like means the potential for sequels. This is probably the only reason I'll ever care about sales figures, barring the occasional paradigm shift described above.

How 'bout yall?

Watcha Playing: de Blob

Amber Ahlborn — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Sad but true, I haven't written a “Watcha Playing” post in ages because I haven't played anything since cracking open my copy of Rune Factory 2 at the end of December. Also sad: I've had de Blob for months, still wrapped in plastic, and finally started in on it this week. I haven't had enough time to get too deep into it yet but after polishing off a few levels I can say this is a pretty nifty little title.

De Blob is one of those games that belongs in the ever growing miscellaneous category. Not calling any particular genre home, it mixes a touch of platforming action with color based twitch challenges that give you a task to complete within a limited time. The game play has been pretty simple so far but manages to be quite entertaining. You're always on the move, looking for challenges and buildings to paint, spreading your graffiti of happiness to a funky tune that changes as you switch colors and paint more of the world. De Blob is a nicely polished game with a clean and simple art style that helps put the focus on the bold color designs that you create as you play. If I were giving out style points, this game would have earned itself a pile of them.

Now, I'm certainly not the first person at 61FPS to play this game. In fact, Cole already posted his own quick experience with de Blob. In it, he made a statement comparing de Blob's freshness to Super Mario Galaxy's formula that I have to contest. Saying that de Blob is everything Super Mario Galaxy should have been is really comparing apples and oranges, or blobs and plumbers. De Blob mixes up its own experimental flavor while Super Mario Galaxy distills what makes me love Mario games and dishes it out in concentrated form. Both are great, but their paths don't really cross.

Related Links:

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Flower - A Zen de Blob?

Derrick Sanskrit — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:59:00 GMT

thatgamecompany's long-awaited "Zen game" Flower is finally being released on the Playstation Network next week, having been originally teased way back at the Tokyo Game Show in 2007. So far the game has caused all who've witnessed it to find themselves unable to accurately describe what the "game" is, only that it is captivating.

VentureBeat's Dean Takahashi was recently treated to a demonstration by Creative Director Jenova Chen. While it is still nowhere near as telling as an actual hands-on experience with the game, it is most definitely insightful.

Controlling the wind via Sixaxis motion control, carry colorful flower petals through the dreary grey flowers and grass to energize the world with color, panning out for cutscenes of landmark colorings. This looks decidedly similar to the story mode of de Blob (my #1 favorite game of 2008) with the notable exception of being incredibly relaxed. There don't appear to be any enemies or noteworthy obstacles, just the garden around you. We've heard that the "levels" of Flower are each the dreams of potted flowers on a window sill and that other dreams include bringing wind to a valley and bringing light to a darkened city. It appears from this demonstration that the little success cutscenes will feel very liberating and joyous for the player, an excellent way to form an emotional connection in such a "casual" game. (You may notice I'm using quotation marks a good deal here. That's because the jury is still out regarding Flower feeling like a "game") Very interesting here is Jenova's explanation that the player will still be in control even during the cutscenes so that they never lose that sense of immersion, even when the camera pulls away, similar to how the player could still control the camera during cutscenes in Shadow of the Colossus.

Flower looks to be the game of the season that shows the most of what the Playstation 3 can do. Tens of thousands of blades of grass moving independently, pushed and pulled by the player in lush high-definition. If you have a Playstation 3 and ten dollars, you should probably get Flower when it hits the PSN Store next week. I know I will.

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de Blob Sequel Probably on the Way!

Cole Stryker — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 21:00:00 GMT

61FPS favorite de Blob has sold well enoug to justify a sequel. This is a fairy-tale story for indie publishers.

According to software sales date released to IGN by the NPD Group, THQ's de Blob sold 230,000 copies through December of last year. That figure encapsulates sales from September 22 through the end of the year in America alone – global figures are not tracked by NPD. Compared to a blockbuster release like Gears of War 2 for Microsoft's Xbox 360 system, which managed sales of two million units in its opening weekend, de Blob's sell-through seems modest. But it's enough to keep the series -- the first game of which cost far less to produce than any Gears title -- going.

Welcome to the future of game development. Low budgets, niche audiences, but enough sales to keep the machine running. The game outsold Nintendo's Wario Land: Shake It! by a good 80K, awesome news for those who dare to risk developing a new IP instead of sticking with what has worked in the past. de Blob is my favorite Wii game, and I'm glad to see it get not only the critical attention, but the consumer recognition it deserves.

(via IGN)

Derrick's Top 13 Games of 2008 - Part 3

Derrick Sanskrit — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 19:30:00 GMT

Catching up? Read part 1 and part 2.

5 - The World Ends With You (DS):
The insanely ambitious action-JRPG probably makes the most use of all the DS hardware has to offer of all DS software with the possible exception of The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, and even then The World Ends With You does it with so much more style and flair that the comparison seems woefully unfair. It's clear that Square Enix's Kingdom Hearts team put years of thought and research into what the DS could and could not do and the result is a game that breaks all expectations like so many angsty teenage hearts. It takes a truly great game to affect me outside of my gaming time, and much like Wii Fit got me thinking about jogging to the train every morning, The World Ends With You got me wearing pins on my bag for the first time since college, picking out just the right ones that may, someday, save my life in heated battle. Oh lord, did I love that dual-screened battle system...

4 - PixelJunk Eden (PS3):
2008 will go down in the history books as the year that downloadable games finally caught on. Okay, maybe not, but it sure feels like they finally delivered on the promise we'd heard for so long: fantastic independent games delivered straight to your home console, no retail environment required, at competitive prices. I loved echochrome and Cubello, and there is no denying the charm and brilliance of Braid and World of Goo, but the one that completely stole my heart and my thumbs was PixelJunk Eden. Not since Chibi-Robo: Park Patrol have I so enjoyed making flowers bloom. Not since Circus Atari have I so enjoyed soaring upwards into monochromatic point markers. Not since spring break have I so enjoyed atmospheric techno and pulsing colors.

3 - Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii):
The biggest-selling game of the year was easily one of the most anticipated, and while it may not be as fondly remembered as its Gamecube predecessor, Super Smash Bros Brawl delivered everything expected of it and then some. The frenetic multiplayer brawling was back, as always, with more characters than ever, including unlikely new faves like Lucas and Diddy Kong and first-time-ever non-Nintendo characters Snake and Sonic. Adventure mode came with an epic, if somewhat vague, storyline complete with luscious CGI cutscenes and gameplay and level design in no way dissimilar to the SNES classic Kirby Super Star (one of my all-time favorites). Classic, All-Star, Multi-Man, Events, Target Smash, pretty much every feature of Super Smash Bros Melee came back bigger and more beefed-up. Of course, the big feature of Brawl was access to the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, being able to fight people from around the world, either total strangers or your own friend lists, sending your friends video replays of your greatest battles, receiving new stages that your friends built in the surprisingly engaging stage builder, even betting on the brawls of total strangers in Spectator mode. What was my favorite feature? Taking snapshots, of course:

2 - LittleBigPlanet (PS3):
It is hard not to fall in love with LittleBigPlanet. The art direction, the music, the narrative and general use-your-imagination, make-whatever-you-want gestalt is sometimes intoxicating. I've already written at length about the charming adventures of Sackboy, so I won't reiterate the points of my review found here and here. I will say this: LittleBigPlanet so far is the only disc-based game that has made me happy I own a PS3 rather than an XBox or PS2. The endless potential of user-generated content guarantees that LittleBigPlanet will always be exactly as fun and exciting as you want it to be, if not moreso.

1 - de Blob (Wii):
Yes, my absolute favorite game of the year is on the Wii. No, that game was not made by Nintendo. No, I'm not messing with you. de Blob is, without a doubt, the happiest a game has made me since I first played Yoshi's Island on the Super Nintendo and relished in its blatant disregard for flashy CGI and polygons in favor of engrossing gameplay and a unique and heartwarming aesthetic. As a young progressive, I rally behind its anti-corporate, pro-independent artist storyline. As an audiophile, I bliss out to the interactively escalating soundtrack, as I've mentioned before, twice. As a solo gamer, I delight in the variety of challenges. As a social gamer, the multi-player paint-fests get my teeth gritting in a ferocious grin. If you have a Wii and enjoy playing any games that do not involve simulating sports/exercise/music playing, get de Blob. There, that's my review, just flippin' play de Blob because it's the best damn game that came out all year, and 2008 was an amazing year for games.

Part 1
Part 2

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What Amber Didn't Play in 2008
Time Magazine's Top 10 Games of 2008

OST: de Blob

Derrick Sanskrit — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:00:00 GMT

A few weeks ago I brought a stack of my favorite Wii games to a friend's house to celebrate her new Wii. Boom Blox and WarioWare: Smooth Moves were crowd pleasers. Super Mario Galaxy delighted and disoriented. Smash Bros. Brawl was an all around hit. When de Blob was popped in, I insisted that we turn off the George Clinton on the stereo to properly enjoy the game and was promptly turned down, so I removed the game. I love me some P. Funk, but de Blob's progressive soundtrack is right up at the top of a long list of reasons to love what is quite possibly the best third-party game Nintendo's little white wunderbox has got, and to play it without listening to what it's got to offer is like trying to enjoy a BLT without the tomato, lettuce or bread. Yeah, bacon's still (really) good on its own, but there's so much more you're missing out on!

I've already raved about de Blob's incredibly engrossing sound design. John Guscott gets a good solid spotlight in the game's end credits for "Sound" and he really steals the show. As I mentioned before, each session of the game allows you to choose Blob's mood, which has its own song associated with it. That song is built out of the paint colors you douse the town in, with a different voice for each color. The more yellow you paint, the more maracas you'll hear. More purple, more electric guitar, and so on. On the game's official CD soundtrack, John arranged one track for each of the mood's in the game, bringing in each voice as he saw fit. Each track on the CD could very easily be recreated in the game, but the beautiful thing is that you can arrange these songs however you want just by painting different colors at different times in different densities of buildings.

Here, for example, is one of my favorite possible tunes for the game, a snappy little bossa nova number associated with the mood "Blissful":

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Sega "Gets" the Wii

Derrick Sanskrit — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 16:00:00 GMT

As previously stated, the Nintendo Wii is just about two years old now, well enough into its life cycle to no longer forgive developers for unfamiliar hardware restrictions and lazy ports (yes, I'm looking at you, Harmonix and Rock Band). Most people still look at the Wii as home of the goofy mini-game collection despite its having also hosted some truly unique and wonderful unloved gems like EA's Boom Blox, Ubisoft's No More Heroes, Capcom's Zack & Wiki and THQ's de Blob. There is one major game publisher, though, who seems hard-pressed to make the Wii completely awesome with a wide range of aggressive titles, and that publisher is (believe it or not) Sega. That's right, longtime Nintendo rival Sega. Kinda makes you wonder why the Dreamcast flopped...

Yeah, it seems like the kids over at Sega have really taken a shine to their former direct competitor this generation. The system launched with another entry in the ever-popular Super Monkey Ball franchise, soon followed by the Wii-exclusive Sonic & the Secret Rings (which garnered much more of a positive reaction than the current-gen Sonic The Hedgehog on XBox 360 Playstation 3). Then, of course, came the history-making Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games and the long-anticipated Saturn sequel NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams and a follow-up to the Dreamcast's Samba de Amigo (not to mention multi-platform titles like Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk and Sega Superstar Tennis and well-received hardcore niche titles like Ghost Squad and Bleach). What do those games have in common that No More Heroes and Zack & Wiki didn't? Oh, that's right, you might have actually heard of them! That's because Sega actually markets their games aggressively with that marvelous innovation called advertising.

And Sega ain't stopping there. In addition to the multiplatform Sonic Unleashed, they're also bringing Wii exclusives MadWorld, House of the Dead: Overkill, Sonic and the Black Knight (a sequel to the aforementioned Secret Rings) and the just-announced newly-aquired much-hyped The Conduit. These are decidedly "hardcore" games, two of which involve over-the-top violence and gore, one is billed as a revolution in first-person-shooter controls and graphics on Wii (see screenshot to the left, yes, those are in-game graphics on the Wii), and the other gives Sonic the Hedgehog a frickin' sword. These are games that fans, analysts, and Sega reps continue to insist people want – nay, crave – and based on the number of ads I've seen in the past year for NiGHTS, Mario & Sonic and Samba de Amigo, they will be marketed well. People will know that these games exist, that these games are awesome, and that these games are available for a Wii near you, which is more than can be said about my poor pirate buddies Zack and Wiki.

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Whatcha Playing: de Blob

Cole Stryker — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 22:00:00 GMT

Just a few short days ago, I was "Whatcha Playing" Secret of Evermore. That is, until de Blob arrived in my mailbox. It's a delightful romp through an increasingly complex and challenging environment, where just a few basic skills are utilized in clever ways. In short, this game is everything that Super Mario Galaxy should have been, but wasn't.

If there were any justice in the world, this game would outsell that old plumber's celestial adventure, because it's much more approachable, smart, and rewarding. Sadly, with that goofy French-sounding title (What were they thinking?), it will likely be lumped in with the dozens of colorful also-ran platformers vying for your holiday dollars. It's a shame, because I think it's the Best Wii Game Yet.

It's like Katamari Damacy meets Jet Grind Radio. Roll and bounce around, paint all the gray surfaces different colors. It appeals to one's OCD like nothing since Diablo. You won't be able to put it down until you've made sure every inch of gray has been splashed with color. If you have a Wii than you'd better buy this. Otherwise it's time to turn in your Serious Gamer card.

No Alternate Soundtrack: de Blob

Derrick Sanskrit — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:00:00 GMT

I can't stop playing de Blob. I've tried, honestly I have, but I'm convinced that de Blob will maintain control of my home console gaming time until LittleBigPlanet arrives and is likely for a powerful comeback even after that. Yes, as an art school graduate, I find a certain nostalgic rush in a game where the story involves splattering paint around a sprawling metropolis in order to take down an overbearing corporation with a military dictatorship over the land, and yes, the game's bright and enthusiastic roll-into-everything gameplay brings back the charm of the original Katamari Damacy, and yes, this game has easily the best art direction I've seen on the Wii since Super Mario Galaxy, but I'm not sure that those are what keep me coming back every day (though that is certainly enough, I imagine). No, what keeps me coming back, oddly enough, is the music.

In true "fight the power" fashion, bringing color to the world of Chroma City also brings music. Each color of paint is a different voice in the song, so the more purple in an area of town, the more electric guitar you'll hear. As you paint the town, the soundtrack grows and swells in perfect harmony. Each restored landmark brings with it another enthusiastic section of the orchestra, and each ink stain muffles the glorious light and sound in its vignetted black chokehold. About halfway through any given stage I find myself tapping my foot and shifting my hips to the beat (I always play Wii standing up, I have no idea why). It's really an aspect of the game that needs to be experienced. Here's a little demo courtesy of the cool kids over at GoNintendo of just the first section (of three) of the second area in the game (please feel free to skip around, as its a bit slow-going):

Notice how vibrantly the soundtrack changed from beginning to end. Need I reiterate, that's just the first third of the stage. Imagine how lively this can get by the time you've reached the exit pool. The music integration is a truly compelling element to the gameplay that drives me to complete every challenge I can and paint every surface I can in as many colors as I can on a daily basis. I cannot imagine this game being half as much fun without the music and sounds. If you have a Wii, go get de Blob, and play it with the volume cranked up.

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Handjobs for Homebrew: Mario Paint Composer DS

Derrick Sanskrit — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:00:00 GMT

There's never been a better time to be an independent software developer. College students are designing original concepts that are then developed by established publishers into big games like Portal and de Blob. Small teams working in bedrooms or coffee shops are developing downloadable console games like Braid and World of Goo. And then, of course, there are the homebrew developers, releasing their software often for free or a small donation. Widely seen in less-than-100%-legal light, homebrew software is often a means of "hacking" the platform of choice to add functionality that had not originally been intended. While there's never any guarantee of quality when it comes to these things, there are some fantastic pieces of homemade software out there, and we hope to spotlight a few of them here on "Handjobs for Homebrew" (this is Nerve, I can say "handjobs," can't I?)

Originally demoed just about a month ago, BassAceGold's homebrew of the Mario Paint Composer for the Nintendo DS was released to the internet masses last week. There have already been a number of homebrew applications to add the painting and animation components of the Super Nintendo classic Mario Paint to the touch-screen handheld, but MPC emulates the feature that always seemed to me (and, apparently, the YouTube community) to be the most engaging element, its cartoonish music composition score.

For those who've never played Mario Paint, allow me to explain... A series of wacky icons each represent a different voice in the song, so many instruments could share a single staff in the musical score. Still don't get it? Check out this YouTube video of Yoshi's Theme played in Mario Paint:

Well BassAceGold's Mario Paint Composer translates that delightfully unique musical interface to the DS. Saving and loading various songs is a breeze if you're working with SD memory cards (which most Nintendo DS flashcards do in order to utilize such software), the touch screen is perfect for adjusting notes, and this homebrew has even gone ahead and added four new voices, the distorted horn blast piranha plant, the warm piano coin, the soft strings shy guy and the fuzzed harp boo. Check out this demo by the programmer on a beta of the program playing Boston's mega-hit "More Than A Feeling":

Of course, the software is not perfect. I'd love to see some tighter timeline controls and something aside from a title graphic on the top screen (maybe a zoomed-out view of your whole arrangement) but Mario Paint Composer is still an excellent addition to the DS's growing library of musical production tools, ranging from retail software like Jam Sessions, Korg DS-10 and Electroplankton to other excellent homebrew like Nitrotracker, Groovestep and the ever-popular LSDJ (run it on a Gameboy emulator, it plays like a sweet dream on the DS). If you have the appropriate equiptment to run homebrew DS software, feel free to download Mario Paint Composer here and start kicking out the jams!

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You Got Your Waggle In My Touch Screen Portable!

Derrick Sanskrit — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:00:00 GMT

You may remember back in May when Activision CEO Mike Griffith stated that the next Tony Hawk game would be a Nintendo DS exclusive and "utilizes new technology not yet seen on the DS." According to a press release sent yesterday by Activision, that game is Tony Hawk's Motion, which proudly announces it will use the Motion Pack for accelerometer-based game control. That's great and all, but why is this the first we've heard of the "Motion Pack"? The press release casually mentions it as if it were some peripheral we were all already familiar with. All we can gather about it from the press release is that it adds an accelerometer - the same kind of gyroscope that's in the Wii remote and iPhone - to the DS.

Obviously, the Motion Pack is the big selling feature, what with "Motion" right there in the game's title, but the package promises variety as well with an all new Todd Richards Pro Snowboarder mode and a whole 'nother game packed in as Hue Pixel Painter: an "action-oriented puzzler" "uncovering sources of paint below the ground’s surface" and "bringing color back to a dreary environment and defending against the Drabs who have set out to leave the world gray and bland." So it's de Blob?

The two games are set to come packed together this November for the MSRP of $39.99, a bit steeper than your average AAA DS title, but hey, it's two games and we can only assume the Motion Pack comes packed in as well. We can only assume, of course, because we haven't heard anything else about it yet.

The idea of motion-control on the DS has been widely discussed ever since the Wii first waggled onto the scene, so I'm not surprised to see someone doing something about it, but I can't help but wonder is this a worthwhile gimmick? The DS has seen plenty of innovation already. The variety of input methods and controls in games like The World Ends With You, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and Electroplankton are astounding, far greater than many gamers believed possible on a handheld. Playing through each of those surprised me and made me begin to wonder what else was possible on the DS that I just hadn't seen yet. How well will the game play when you are constantly tilting the whole system, including the screens you're supposed to look at? Who knows? It's only slightly awkward with WarioWare Twisted, but I suppose we'll have to wait and see.

Other good news is that Tony Hawk Motion/Hue Pixel Painter is not being developed by Neversoft, the company responsible for the distillation and monotony of past Tony Hawk and Spider-Man games, as well as the recent Guitar Heroes, but rather by CREAT Studios, bringers of Insecticide for the DS and Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Zombie Pro-Am for the PS2... so yeah, there's that.

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The Revolution WILL Be Colorized

Derrick Sanskrit — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:00:00 GMT

It's easy to hate on third-party games for the Wii. A vast majority of them are quick and dirty ports or poorly constructed party games with a noticable deficiency in the fun department. Maybe that's why I get genuinely excited when a high quality third-party game comes along. Boom Blox was a blast (oh god, I'm sorry about that), No More Heroes was enthralling, SSX Blur was a great deal of fun after you took the time to relearn the controls. Unfortunately, none of those games sold particularly well. Let's hope that's not the case with the next Wii sleeper hit, THQ's de Blob.

Originally a student project, de Blob is starting to look like a truly worthwhile gaming experience. While early videos looked fun but far from refined, the additional seven months of development have clearly made a huge difference in graphics, sound, and presentation. The most curious aspect of the game, moreso than its unusual hero and artistic revolution plot, is that de Blob is still a Wii-exclusive (there had been a DS version announced, but nothing has been shown yet and there's been no mention of it for months) with no real neccessary motion control. A quick flick of the remote makes your Blob jump, which could easily be replaced by a button tap. So if this third-party game could just as easily be made for the PS3 or 360, why is it Nintendo-exclusive? Personally, I don't care, as Sony and Microsoft have been hogging Katamari Damacy. which de Blob has drawn numerous comparisons to.

Check out this sweet new developer video for a preview of how excellent de Blob looks. It's getting harder to wait for that September 22nd release date.