Review: "de Blob"

I think I know why I fell in love with de Blob. It has to be the soundtrack of the game. As you roll around the city as a giant blob of paint, the city fills with music. When you bring the color, you bring the funk. This amazing Quincy Jones street beat starts popping up all over the place. I'm almost positive that the soundtrack fuels three-fourths of the fun of de Blob.

This may be the perfect game for children and adults alike. The premise is silly: you, de Blob, are aiding a team of color revolutionaries to reanimate the city of Chroma. The inkies have come in and taken away all the color, and so you, de Blob, must make Chroma City come back to life. Viva la revolucion!

So essentially, the game is teaching kids how to be revolutionaries (to a very funk and jazz oriented soundtrack). Frankly, I thought this game had some undertones when it came to message. The I.N.K.T. corporation comes in, spreads out, and ruins all of the colorful lifestyles and cultures in the city? My conspiracy theory is that de Blob is secretly about gentrification. Gentrification occurs when you go into a neighborhood, vibrant and full of culture, and start putting in dog grooming stores and Wal-Marts (to "make them better"). Your job is to go in, tear down the corporation and start making life vibrant again. But it's not like this game independently ran out on any corporations - it was being supported by Nintendo, THQ, and an exlusive special release from Circuit City. Thus, maybe it isn't intentionally about gentrification, but you must admit that there's something fishy about this revolution business.

One thing that I picked up on with de Blob is that the game actually reminded me of Tony Hawk's Pro-Skater 2. You run around, you do little mini-games, and the point is to free ride around a city to rack up points. No, you don't do tricks and there is a severe lack of Bob Burnquist, but it is similar if only for the maps and mini-games.

The only place where de Blob gets it wrong is the multiplayer. Much like on Tony Hawk, there's a "king of the hill" type game - each player paints as much as they can, racking up more points than the other player, and going to paint over the other player's stuff. Unfortunately, it just doesn't translate as well to de Blob. It's more frustrating than fun.

But the main levels for de Blob offer a lot of room for roaming around and exploring. I'm sure this could be annoying, but again, this is obviously a game aimed at kids. It probably only has semi-replayability, considering running around and painting things over and over again can get old pretty quickly. Still, de Blob keeps it fun. Through the soundtrack and the story, it gets you geared for action. In fact, I heard myself saying things like, "De Blob de failed" after losing a mini-game. The game just gets in your system.

Oh, and did I mention that I found the new best fictional foreign language? Forget The Sims, the blobs' language is way better. It's like a sped-up Jabba the Hut, except you can actually make out them saying proper names, like "Blob" in a really fast way. Take that, Tolkien.

This is one of the best third-party games I've played for the Wii in a long time. Do yourself a favor and join the color revolution.

Grade: A