GREAT FUN WITH A CAT
"Gameplay" in Blinx pretty much consists of walking through straightforward levels, sucking in trash, and shooting it back out at monsters. Occasionally you'll have to hit a switch or jump, but that's nothing new to the genre: what is new, is the introduction of the time controls: oftentimes to get to said enemies, or even to get the advantage over them, you'll have to use one of your many time abilities, which do exactly what you may think their names imply. Fast Forward speeds you up, Slow grinds your enemies to a snail's pace, Pause stops them momentarily, and so on.
For the first couple of worlds, Blinx is lots of fun, if not the "revolutionary" platform game that all X-Box fansites made it out to be. Then, you begin to realize that the combination of jumping and shooting garbage isn't exactly a must play experience, and the time controls, while good on paper, begin to feel more like a gimmick than an actual game mechanic. Sure, you have to use them in certain spots, but a great deal of the game can be beaten without the use of these so-called "essential" powers.
Also lacking is the power-up system, which costs entirely too much for even the smallest upgrade, and Blinx's running speed leaves a lot to be desired: cats are supposed to be fast and nimble, so why does Blinx run like a snail crawls?
All is not negative, since Blinx is one of the most gorgeous X-Box games to hit shelves in some while. It definitely shows what the system is capable of, and can actually be legitimately fun when taken in small doses. Blinx isn't a bad game by any stretch of the imagination, it's just a victim of its own hype.