Currently Playing: de BLOB

I picked this up from Play.com for just £18 having seen a great review for it in both EDGE and over at Eurogamer. I'm about half way through the story (although there's heaps of replay value and much I haven't done in each district) and I have to say it's thoroughly charming and great fun to play. My favourite Wii game by a long chalk.

Basically each part of the city has been robbed of colour and the residents trapped in their dull appartment blocks and buildinds.. as de Blob of the title it's your job to suck up as much colour as you can and paint things back to life. Of course there are various tasks to help you win back the city and these are handily graded.. Although they're not all compulsory.

The game (at least so far) is perfectly paced introducing a steady stream of new enemies, moves and concepts as you play but never over powering with you too much. The only downside so far has been the lack of autosaving.. You get very used on 360 and PS3 to games saving for you after you've accomplished anything and thus being able to play in short bursts (something de BLOB would be great for) but as it is it'll only save after you complete a whole district. Which can take upto 45-50 minutes just to complete the bare bones..

The control scheme is pretty handy. The Blob himself is moved with the nunchuck stick whilst flicks of the remote handle jumping.. it can feel a bit vague. Especially when you're trying to get the highest parts of a level. But generally I've found it find. Especially with a bit of practice and the realisation that the Blob himself has a sort of friction when he jumps against a wall allowing you to manouever him. Double jumps, as noted by EDGE and Eurogamer, are very hit and miss.

The art style too warrants a mention. The games characters are all distinctive and fun and the fact that you can freestyle paint (you can even mix paints by jumping into different supplies of colour blue and yellow to make green for instance) and the game rewards you for doing blocks of appartments in as many different colours as you can.

Overall then I'd recommend it to anyone who has an underused Wii and is looking for something a bit deeper than the odd party game.