de Blob paints the town red, sings until it's blue in the face, and makes other games green with envy through its charm.
Not thin but bulging with colour is the main character who is simply called Blob. Blob has eyes, pointy ears and a pair of arms but is otherwise just a round ball of colour and energy. Blob's mission, should he choose to paint it, is to stop his nemesis Comrade Black before he sterilizes all of the colour from Blob's world and fills it with bland buildings and inky black water.
To turn the INKT affected world back to a colourful one Blob must paint white buildings, dying trees and immobile flying cars back to life with a splash of colour. Blob can soak up colour by bathing in a pool of paint or jumping on top of a Paintbot to make himself blue, red and yellow, or mix together colours to make orange, green, purple or brown. Painting the town red, or indeed any colour, is the main source of fun in de blob 2 as you get to see trees blossom (often with funny coloured leaves) into life and make flying cars take colour and then flight.
All of these noble actions wouldn't be half as enjoyable were it not for the superb sounds that accompany each part of the landscape's revival. Depending on what colour Blob is when painting the level's canvas you can hear the sweet sounds of a guitar, a saxophone and a dj turntable among others. When changing from one colour to another and painting levels left, right and centre the music goes from starting out as a little tune to a full blown medley of a melody before long, inspiring you to explore and paint as many things as possible.
Trying to stop your vibrant trail of colour are Comrade Black's legion of inky minions called Inkies. The Inkies come in various guises to try and stop your revolution of colour, including baton wielding guard Inkies that can be squashed by jumping on them, Elite Inkies that require you to be a certain colour before you can bash their heads in, and an Inky that carries a homing missile (which fires when you jump in the air) should be charge attacked for maximum effectiveness, a la Sonic The Hedgehog.
Blob may share a few moves with Sonic but the most obvious platforming comparison to de Blob 2 is in fact the past few Mario games, Sunshine and Galaxy. The first de Blob 2 level recalls larking about on the beaches in Super Mario Sunshine and the very last stage has you catapulting around small planets like in Super Mario Galaxy.
The level design throughout de Blob 2 doesn't always hit the high notes of a portly plumber adventure however, and can often frustrate and bore in equal measure. Levels set in and around factory complexes mid-to-late in the game lay the games formula bare, in which you progress from one large structure to another, and can cause frustration if you get knocked off a tall tower and have to do some serious back-tracking.
Unfortunately that isn't the only miss-step that can cause frustration in de Blob 2. Only having two difficulty levels to choose from may not sound like much of an issue but, given the disparity between the two, this can lead to the game being too easy or, at times, too difficult. One point of annoyance when playing on normal difficulty is the stringent time constraints, as thanks to a ticking clock it's not possible to colour or explore as much as you would like. Failing to adhere to the near-constant time limit can mean seeing the dreaded game over screen, or restarting a level completely.
Starting a stage from scratch can be time consuming and so can de Blob 2's story mode. Unfortunately de Blob 2's 10-12 hour story isn't always a fun-filled one as, if anything, the game feels too long and repetition can set in long before the finish line is in sight. As fun as it is to sprinkle some colour into Prisma City the gameplay just feels as though it's been stretched to breaking point. I also feel that de Blob 2 is a lot more suited to a scaled-down handheld experience, than a home console one, and that the gameplay and controls would shine a lot brighter on a 3DS and/or an NGP.
Speaking of 3D; de Blob 2 supports 3D TV's allowing you to add depth as well as colour to your works of art. Deep isn't exactly what you'd call the control scheme, as some might find it overly simplistic compared to games that make more use of all the buttons, but it is quite easy to pick up and get used to for younger gamers. dIn de Blob 2 you'll be doing a lot of jumping with the a/x button, jumping on buildings, jumping on enemies, jumping on switches etc. As well as this you will need to employ the target reticule to target enemies and other interactive items with the left-trigger, move around with the left analogue stick, and make use of a compass with the y/triangle button.
Most of the gameplay in de Blob 2 involves going underground and navigating 2D sections to bring colour to the surface, then using that colour to paint the 3D sections to reveal a transform engine, which, as you might expect, transforms the blank white world into colourful scenery en masse.
To stave off a decent amount of boredom that could occur there are power-ups that let Blob turn into a metal ball, to roll up and around metallic surfaces, a rainbow pick-up that gives Blob unlimited paint and will change colour to suit Blob's task and a graviton power that makes a black hole of Blob, which sucks all enemies, collectibles and colours into Blob either assimilating or destroying, in the case of Inky enemies.
Character and humour is what Blob's all about as, when the lack of variety in the gameplay is getting you down, the games humour comes along to keep you smiling throughout. There are great cutscenes in between levels that reward you for your efforts, mostly involving the Inkies bumbling incompetence and in one occasion show us an Inkies dream of being an ice-skater. But the humour doesn't stop once the movies do as there are many funny touches during the game, including Comrade Black goading you at the end of the game to give up by telling Blob to press start and then select quit or just jump into the bottomless pit of space.
The space in de Blob 2 isn't filled with a graphical powerhouse but rather a quietly impressive abstract art style that certainly leaves a lasting impression. And with all the serious games that exhibit highly-detailed brown and grey colour pallets it's a joy when a bright, colourful, and cheerful game like de Blob 2 comes along.
Despite having a few niggling blemishes de Blob 2's artistic approach takes pride of place in the foreground, thanks to its colourful visuals, soothing sounds and underlying humour. An overly long story mode, and difficulty discrepancies, may take the shine off what could've been a classic museum piece but de Blob 2 is a mighty fine colouring book to treasure.