The Splatters, xbox360 (Guest Reviewer)

Buttonmasher regular Barrie Clarke flings sticky stuff around with gay abandon in The Splatters.

If World of Goo and Worms ever had a baby I imagine that the resulting child would be something along the lines of The Splatters. The latest in the line of now popular physics based puzzle games has you detonating little bombs by moving them into an accessible area and then exploding your living blobs of paint over as many as possible. There isn’t too much more to this colourful game but it’s charm will soon have you in the ‘just-one-more-go’ frame of mind.

The premise is simple, get rid of all the bombs. Within the environment some surfaces are sticky and some slippery, the latter being of use to launch your smiling paint blobs across the map to slam the bombs loose from their hold. Just watch out for any spikes, touching these will puncher you blob, spilling it’s paint, something you only want to do above bombs of the same colour to explode them. All this shooting across the screen and tricky manoeuvres will net you bonus stunt points to help you achieve up to three stars for each level.

With no time limit for each level you can afford to have a good think before getting your paint on the move, which is important because your little blobs will stick together if they touch another of the same colour. Good if you want more mass to move large clusters of bombs, bad if you need to get bombs in separate areas of the map. I guess the sign of an addictive but tricky at times game is when the ‘Back’ button on the controller is mapped to restart the level, and it is sure to see plenty of use.

 Visually The Splatters is nothing special but for the game it is, nothing special is needed. The music and sound effects are forgettable but adequate for what is required. The only thing different in the presentation department is the addition of Splatter TV. This is the ability to upload replays of your games for the community to watch, and obviously you can watch how others have achieved their high scores too. This can also help if you are having trouble with a particular level.

Closing Comments.

So basically I really am enjoying The Splatters. The graphics, sound, and presentation may

not be anything genre defining but it is all stuck together with awesome physics based gameplay. I have to place The Splatters squarely in my ‘just-one-more-go’ pile of games. It’s a fine line between addictive and controller throwing but The Splatters manages to walk that line very well indeed.

This review is also posted by Barrie at Buttonmasher.