For the past few years, I’ve labeled the summer and early fall as the official video game drought. The games I want always seem to come out in every other season besides summer. Since I’m still in school, the summer is the only real chance I get to sit down and focus on games.  After looking through the marketplace, I stumbled upon Splosion Man. The game revolves around a little red man who can ’splode three times before needing to touch the ground again. There are 50 levels to traverse and you won’t be strolling through all of them.

The game is ridiculously fun and easy to hop into. The controls consist of the left stick and either the A, B, X, or Y button to ’splode. As I started out, I found the first set of levels a little easy, but they serve their purpose. As you progress into the harder levels, the practice from the earlier levels pays off. In addition, accompanying you through the levels are the quirky sounds of both the scientists and the Splosion Man. One interesting fact I learned from this game is that people are actually made up of assorted deli meats.

Although Splosion Man is a great game, I do have some complaints. A lot of the game is based off of timing, and sometimes I wish that the camera was controllable. While you can “bump” the camera around using the right stick, there are spots where the camera feels too close to the action. In terms of the look of the game, it’s great looking, but gets repetitive. Most 2D games vary up the background every few levels, but unfortunately Splosion Man doesn’t.

Overall this is a great game and the positives easily outweigh the negatives. When you’re finished with the game,  you can try the co-op or time trial modes, but they don’t offer too much in terms of additional gameplay. In co-op, many levels rely on ’sploding your partner in order to get to higher levels in the map.The co-op mode is a great idea, but isn’t executed nearly as well as it could have been. The time trial mode is just that, nothing more. Considering there isn’t much else out right now, I’d say Splosion Man is definitely worth your $10 and should help the time pass by as you wait for the bigger releases coming later this year.