Those horrible, evil scientists at Big Science are at it
again. Back in 2009 they created an
insane, mutated exploding man named Splosion Man, but this time around they’ve
mixed sugar, spice and everything nitroglycerin to make the exploding woman
called Ms. Splosion Man. Note the
neo-feminist “Ms.” instead of the old-fashioned “Miss” like in Miss Pac
Man. Yes, Ms. Splosion Man is one
of them liberated dames, and she’ll probably blow you up if you call her a dame
to her face.
For those not familiar with the original Splosion Man, it’s a very popular XBLA platformer game by Twisted
Pixel, the developer that created The Maw and Comic Jumper. The
first game in the Splosion Man
series was a surprise hit for Xbox Live arcade two years ago, and the silly
platformer quickly drew a following due to its humor and clever gameplay
mechanic which involved a protagonist who could explode at will to perform
jumps, or destroy nearby objects for solving puzzles- not to mention blow up
bad guys. It had a lengthy
single-player campaign, and an equally impressive multiplayer mode too, plus
lots of humor.
One of the funny little gags in Splosion Man is that if you died enough on a level, you could
skip it, through a feature called “The Way Of The Coward”. However, doing so meant that you’re
character had to run around in a pink tutu. Well someone at the developer must have a fondness for pink
frilly things, because the sequel is crammed with girliness. Although Tutus have yet to be
confirmed, your new protagonist is a pink, giggly mutant with sky-blue eyeshadow
and lovely eyelashes. She’ll
prance her way through fifty single-player levels and another fifty multiplayer
levels too.
Aside from the addition of pretty ribbons for your hair and
lots of make-up, the game also has new rail-riding sequences and some other features
new to the series, including something called “Two Girls, One Controller
Mode”. This mode lets a player
control two characters at the same time to complete levels that require
cooperation between two characters onscreen (And hopefully has nothing to do
with the internet meme that spawned the name). Also new to the Splosion games are jump pads and cannons for
launching your sploding character around the levels.
The core gameplay will remain the same otherwise, with
players guiding Ms. Splosion Man around Big Science labs, possibly in an
attempt to rescue Splosion Man who is captured by the scientists at the start
of the game. Preview footage shows
the same sort of splody puzzling and platforming from the original, so fans of
the first game should be optimistic about this sequel. In fact, platformer fans in general
should take note of this series as Ms. Splosion Man looks to be a very good example of the genre.
Ms. Splosion Man is
an XBLA exclusive, and she’ll blast her way onto the system July 13th
at the price of 800 Microsoft points, or ten dollars. You can see the official teaser trailer below.