POSTED 25/4/12


THE SPLATTERS

SpikySnail/Microsoft
Xbox 360/XBLA

Must... exercise... constraint. Must... not... bend... to... oh-so-tempty... temptation...
 
Please excuse our textual constipation, but when you name a game like this, and those with puerile minds like us encounter it, well it has the potential for explosive verbal... NO!

The Splatters (snicker!) are a squat team of goofy grinning gloop globs. In reality crack bomb disposal experts, they’re posing as a troupe of highly-skilled acrobats, whose only wish is to go out in style. This involves flinging them at all manner of loop-the-loops, spikes and other bits and bobs in the name of being spectacular – and eliminating those nasty-pastie, party-pooping bombs, natch. These guys are seemingly filled with some form of bomb-dissolving acid, and you have to kersplot them in such a way that they plop onto their targets. Otherwise, their deaths are in vain, and do you really want that clogging your conscience?

You prove yourself in the many levels of ‘Become a Talent’, learning the ropes and slopes, acquiring new stunts and chaining them together to score mucho big pointy-points. Get enough runs on the board here and two new options open up; ‘Combo Nation’, requiring mastery of the obvious considering the title, and ‘Master Shots’, where you’re tasked with pushing out certain tricks from your repertoire by request.

Presentation’s slick, with worldwide scoreboards, and ‘Splatter TV’ allowing clip sharing of all your masterful movements – or pooey ones.

The challenge curve’s nicely balanced, although sometimes you’ll have absolutely NFI what you did to make it through – and sometimes NFI why you didn’t, as one pissy bomb might refuse to explodinate despite appearing to glub gloriously in kamikaze glob gloop. Stoo- erm, still, despite regular frustration we kept straining away determined to squeeze out a win, making The Splatters (titter!) well-balanced – or us just plain anal.

AGH! Can’t… hold... it... in... any... longer. It’s Angry Turds!

CLICK THIS!



CLICK THIS!