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I only play once, in a different COUNTRY!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: April 01, 2006
Author: Amazon User

IT WAS GREAT! It wasnt mine, and it's so hard that I'd be shocked if I made it past the 4th level,( there is like, 100) but it's really fun! If you are an expert player with xbox, then you will love this game!

A sloppy, emotionless title with few redeeming factors

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: September 23, 2006
Author: Amazon User

As the opening cutscene introduces you to Blinx the cat, the supporting cast and the particulars of his upcoming adventures, I found myself trying to wrap my brain around the basic premise of the story. The idea is that a secret, off-world clan of humanoid cat creatures, armed with souped up vacuum cleaners, are responsible for the development and dispersal of time itself to every known plane of existence on the map. It seems that time, when compressed tightly enough to be transported by said cats, takes the form of one of five different brightly-colored shapes. If these crystals are left out on the open for too long without being properly introduced to the flow of things, they turn into monsters. I could go on, because the game certainly doesn't stop there, but I think you get the point.

I like to think that there's a fairly thick line drawn between cartoony fantasy and super-detailed realism. Generally, a lot of the physics and environmental details are taken for granted in a realistic game, because they're almost exclusively set in a photorealistic, lifelike location. Cartoons, on the other hand, generally don't worry themselves with the particulars and are primarily concerned with delivering a good time. How much fun would the Wile E. Coyote cartoons be if every time the lead character suffered a grisly fate, it strictly obeyed the laws of gravity and aerodynamics? Blinx tries to straddle that thick line by delivering a story that's overly detail-centric in an environment that's right out of a kid's show. The result is a tale that comes off as way, WAY out of left field and almost completely abstract. It focuses on things that would be better left to the viewer's imagination and ignores the importance of a good underlying story along the way.

Beneath the needless discussions of why there are monsters in the world, how time compression works and how cats are actually responsible for all that we hold dear, the actual plot is almost laughably straightforward and generic. There's a princess, evil pigs have kidnapped her, and it's up to you and you only to rescue her and save her world. That's it, no side-stories, no reasoning, no subplots - just a straightforward rush from Point A to Point B. And here I thought the phrase "save the princess" was universally recognized as an ages-old cliche.

Now, I don't want it to sound like I'm railing on this game just because it's got a few more nitpicky details than its peers and it reuses an old phrase from way back in the platformer handbook as its sole driving factor. It's also completely lacking in character development, general storytelling and ongoing inspiration. None of the characters in Blinx really establish themselves as individuals, including the lead character himself. You don't hate the pig on the spaceship because he's trying to destroy the world, you hate him because every time he shows up he tries to steal your money. I honestly forgot there was a princess at the end of the game after level three, because she's never mentioned between the game's start and its finish. I mean, the very first Super Mario Brothers at least reminded you that the princess was in another castle at the end of every boss fight.

I don't honestly think the game was really designed to be enjoyable so much as it was geared to be overly challenging. The first level and a half are set up in the standard "get to know you" format, with the simplest of enemies, the most routine of stage layouts and plenty of opportunities to mess around with your tools. Shortly thereafter, you're thrown to the wolves. For the most part, the level designs are very short, with more of an emphasis on cheap hits than on complexity and true challenge. I noticed a lot of overlap in the stage layouts, whether it's retracing your steps time and time again or walking along a catwalk (har har) above the beginning of the stage and invariably plummeting back to the start point. You'll almost always know what needs to be done, but actually accomplishing that act is the real trick. I just can't overemphasize how unbearably cheap most of this game really is. If there's a bottomless pit nearby, (and chances are very good that there is) Blinx will find a way to force himself into it, regardless of what you're hitting on the control pad. If there's an enemy two feet in front of you and you hit the attack button, he'll aim at a random switch on the other side of the room, rather than the imminent threat.

That's not to say that the entirety of The Time Sweeper is totally without merit, because it does bring a few fresh ideas to the table, but for the most part those insights are hampered by their surroundings. The ability to control time, for instance, was at the time a really fresh, interesting new play mechanic and still stands out today, despite the limited field of imitators that have since emerged. You can rewind a few seconds to catch an enemy unaware or rebuild a crumbling bridge, pause the action and take advantage of the frozen time, knock the level into slow motion, etc. All the while, Blinx is moving around in real time. It's a great idea, but the implementation is painfully short and underutilized. Why can't I use two controls at the same time? Why don't more aspects of the stage encourage the player to experiment with and solve problems with these powers? Why doesn't the ridiculous ten minute stage time limit pause, speed up or rewind when I use my time powers? Why is their duration so brief, and why can't I hold more than a dozen uses at a time? I mean, this could've really been a fantastic experience if the time control aspect had been beefed up a little further and treated as more than just an auxiliary function of an otherwise run-of-the-mill platformer.

The controls, too, are an undeveloped, undertested nightmare. Blinx himself is often sluggish to respond, especially when implementing his time controls. He has difficulty making a precise turn, whether on midair or on solid ground. He stops to briefly celebrate when gaining an item, which leaves him open to constant enemy attacks. He routinely moves in the direction of certain death, as though pulled by a magnetic field, whether you've instructed him to do so or not. He'll occasionally refuse to perform a double jump, particularly when attempting a difficult, precise leap across a gaping chasm.

I think it's these controls that most make Blinx so mind-squashingly aggravating. At a glance, you'd imagine they'd be fairly difficult to screw up. You've got a jump button, a suction / fire button, a time control button and an analog stick to control movement. Plus, there had already been a long, established line of three-dimensional platformers on the market in the years before the title's release, paving the way to an ideal control experience. Super Mario 64 had its issues, sure, but nothing like this, and it was the trailblazer for the entire genre's jump to the world of 3D. It's like they had a map leading them right to the treasure and decided to forge their own path anyway.

I can't even say I'm impressed by the graphics showcased throughout The Time Sweeper, either. With the exception of the lead character himsef, these are some incredibly cheesy, preschoolish character designs - they feel unfinished and hurried, less purposeful than you'd imagine (especially in contrast with Blinx himself). Particularly insulting is the large population of simple blobs that roam around the levels, trying in vain to bump into you and cause a fatal injury. Here's a finely detailed main character, with such close attention paid to his wardrobe that even the gloss of his shoes was obviously debated time and time again, and he's pitted against a set of monsters that could've sprung to life directly out of the pages of a four-year-old's sketchbook.

Despite featuring a spoken dialog track, there's no English voice acting. I couldn't pinpoint the language, but my wife seems to think it's either French or some close variation of it. It certainly didn't sound Japanese. While this does add a touch of personality to the title, and it's not every day that you get a chance to hear a cat shouting something in the language of love, it all seemed really odd and out of place coming out of my television. Everyone's vocal personalities are so black-and-white, too, that I feel like a great chance to establish some much-needed individuality amongst the cast was lost once again here. The bad guys all have the same deep, gravelly, transparently evil tone, while the good guys are all bright, cheery, squeaky and high-pitched like the monkeys in Super Monkey Ball. It's like a parody of the games that had come before, but I won't give the developers enough credit to assume that they were doing it on purpose.

Overall, Blinx is really just a few promising concepts thrown together in one package, strapped to the shell of a far-below-average third person platformer and unleashed upon an unsuspecting public. At the time of its release, it was still in need of a lot of polishing, some serious scrutiny behind closed doors and a re-evaluation of just how far some of these concepts and half-hearted character designs could be conceivably stretched without losing any quality. On top of that, I really don't know which audience they were targeting with it. The game is ridiculously difficult, which betrays the childlike demeanor that surrounds it and leads me to believe it was meant for the serious gamers out there, but so bright, kid-friendly and annoyingly cutesy that I can't imagine anyone in that demographic rushing out to the stores on release day. The number of spontaneous controller hurls shot through the roof during my time with Blinx, reaching near-Marvel vs. Capcom 2 levels with its unashamed, excruciatingly cheap hits, especially in later levels. I have no idea how I acquired the willpower to finish level eight.

The game is adequately lengthy, and offers some replay value, with hidden cat medals in each stage eventually unlocking production sketches, promotional materials and the like. Once you start hunting for floating cat heads in those super-tough later levels, though, you'll remember why you were so happy to be finished with them in the first place. Unless you feel like pulling your hair out in clumps (I shaved my head after the experience as a part of the cleansing process) and enjoy self-mutilation, I'd recommend you stay far away.

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