I have to fess up – I never played the first Blinx. When it came out, although the idea of the action being recorded onto the Xbox’s harddrive, thus allowing you to manipulate time in the game world intrigued me; I simply wasn’t a fan of platformers.

I had been a PC gamer for many years prior, and I couldn’t get my head around the 3rd person perspective introduced in Super Mario 64. However, since getting an Xbox, I have become a convert of platform games, and enjoy the problem solving puzzles so common to platformers, and even the dreaded double jump.

Most reviews of the previous Blinx game comment negatively on the way Blinx and his time sweeper operate. The camera control was very clumsy, the level of difficulty very high with an arbitrary 10-minute limit on each and every level. Blinx was said to be slower than grass growing, causing one reviewer to exclaim “Couldn’t there be a run button? Or heck, just make him move a bit quicker. That vacuum can’t become a jet pack or something? Anything?!” There was no aiming mechanism, making aiming to shoot at Time Monsters and Tom Tom gang members incredibly hard. Furthermore, you had to collect time crystals in order to use Blinx’s time controls, with some people becoming frustrated at repeating certain parts of the game over and over because they didn’t have the right powers on hand.

Thankfully most of this has been corrected in Blinx 2: Master of Time and Space (from now on simply Blinx 2). I found very little to annoy me about the camera, and whilst not perfect, it’s more than up to the task of being able to guide you around the 10 different worlds you’ll visit. Aiming, which was apparently dodgy due to the unwieldy camera movements, has been infinitely improved with the ability to lock on using the Left Trigger. This makes killing enemies much easier, although it takes a lot of the skill out of the game as well. The 10-minute limit has been removed completely, replaced by a money bonus if you complete the mission in a small amount of time. The time crystal gathering has also been simplified; now Time Monsters will drop a number of different time crystals, and you can collect them in any order.

The level of difficulty has been reduced too, but it has been replaced by a degree of oversimplification. Every time you encounter something remotely out of the ordinary, a pop up box will appear and tell you what you have to do. This is fine for the first level, and acceptable for the second level as things in the game change, but it is just ridiculous when you’re up to the world number 4 or 5. Even more annoying is this halts the action, requiring you to press the A button to continue.

The difficulty isn’t the only thing that’s changed. Instead of playing Blinx, you play as a Time Sweeper, and you can customise the look of your character to quite a high degree. Name, ears, colour, eyes, height, it’s all customisable. Whilst it’s fun to do this, it detracts from the continuity of the game. Another criticism of the first game was that Blinx had no personality, and thus you didn’t care for him. By making a character you have greater attachment to that character, but it’s a double-edged sword, because now there is no personality to the overall game. Imagine if Mario changed every game – if one game he was skinny, another time was dark in skin colour, and another time wore a suit like James Bond – would he be the icon he is today? Of course not! Furthermore, now instead of an identifiable hero, even if he was a dull one, you now have a generic character that is dull. At no time did I feel engaged by my character, or the story.

Your Time Sweeper can perform the same time control moves as in the first game, such as slow, pause, rewind, fast forward and record time. For example, if a bridge is blown up, your Time Sweeper can rewind to a time before the bridge blew up. You can use pause to freeze time monsters, to use falling rocks to jump to a higher part of the level, or to expose an underwater button to air. Fast forward is used to run really fast, and jump through gates which lead to different parts of the level. Record is used to record your movements. Record yourself standing on a button, and then play that back whilst you go stand on another button to unlock a door. Slow slows all that is around you, while you continue at normal speed. These mechanisms are an interesting way to play a platform game, but they don’t extend the gameplay. You still feel as though you are playing a generic platform game, running about to collect this that and the other.

Another change is that you get to play a member of the Tom Tom gang. As the Tom Tom pigs don’t have time controls, they use space controls instead. These are found in crates, or can be purchased at the Club shop, and include things like Warp Tunnel, which rip a hole in space and allow you to pop up elsewhere; The Hypercloak which makes you invisible, but you’re unable to jump or shoot; the Space Bubble which traps anything in it’s radius, and a number of other tools. The Tom Tom Gang parts are much more stealth based, and here the camera can become a bit more of a problem, especially when you are underground in a Warp Tunnel. Your Tom Tom Gang member is also very customisable in the same way as your Time Sweeper, but again, there’s no real sense of character to the game.

There’s a multiplayer component this time as well – you can play the game through with a friend in a co-operative mode, or play 4 player free for all battle. These are nice additions, but felt somewhat lacking. Co-operative mode is much more exciting than the deathmatch portion, although it is funny to use your time skills to reduce your enemy to a kitten or piglet. Maybe I’ve just been spoilt by Xbox live.

The art direction is pretty standard for a platformer – it’s very colourful and over the top. Things like explosion, water, smoke effects look great, and all the characters are animated well. There’s some weird goings on in the cut scenes though – it’s as if the cuts are in the wrong place at times, especially when it’s showing an item you just recovered. However, if you’ve played some of the other great platform games on the Xbox, such as Voodoo Vince or Dr Muto, you really see that Blinx lacks that element of style that makes other games in this genre stand out. The sound effects are adequate, and the cats are rather cute when they meow, but the repetitive music will drive you insane. As there’s no option to load your own music, go into the set up and turn it off, and shove something in your stereo.

Conclusion:
Blinx 2 suffers from a real distinctive lack of style. Nothing about it stands out, even the fancy hard disk recording Time Control mechanism. There’s nothing about the game that really grabs you and keeps you engaged. I can imagine that kids might like it for the cutesy characters and platforming elements, but I think that even then they might grow bored of it. There’s not much of a story, you can’t get attached to the characters, and the gameplay, even with time controls, is pretty generic.

Pros
Time controls are an interesting gameplay device
Many improvements over the last game
Ability to play as either Time Sweepers or Tom Toms

Cons
Generic gameplay across the board.
Annoying handholding throughout the game
Characters have no personality – and you don’t get to play as Blinx
Repetitive, infuriating music

70/100