Indie Review: The Splatters

Die With Style indeed.

• Name: The Splatters
• Genre: Physics Puzzler
• Players: 1
• Multiplayer: None
• Platforms: Xbox Live Arcade
• Developer: SpikySnail Games
• Publisher: Microsoft
• Price: 800 MS Points
• Reviewed On: Xbox 360

Before I start let me just say that this is the most disturbing game I have ever played. Behind its cartoony posterior and fun controls, it’s really kind of psychotic. I mean, blobs of goo smiling at you before their rather spectacular and violent means of suicide. That right there is creepy.

Let’s get on with the review shall we?

The Splatters is a puzzle physics game where the objective is simple: Explode your suicidal heroes and let their goo drip onto bombs of their respective colours in the most spectacular and imaginative way possible. The controls are easy enough to pick up and play straight away, but you do get stunt abilities such as changing trajectory mid-jump, launching yourself like a torpedo and even reversing the entire field. All of these have strategic significance and you need to utilize them all in order to get all the bombs and pass the levels.

The game uses stars as its scoring system with 3 stars being the best. It takes a keen eye and good skill to achieve the coveted 3 stars and it doesn’t make it easy to do so. You need to up your multiplier by using stunts in quick succession and creative ways to explode all the bombs. The bombs are sometimes difficult to notice because a single one is very small and often you miss it and have to do the round over again.

The game starts out simple enough with only easy puzzles and tutorial missions, but then it gets hard. Very hard. The game stays true to the “easy to play, difficult to master” mantra with puzzles that seem impossible, but are doable if you use your stunts and blobs wisely. There are 3 modes available to play with their own objectives. Maximum combo, normal play and skill shots where you have to use the correct stunts at the correct time. All amount to quite a sizeable game with lots of levels to complete and attempt to achieve 3 stars.

The Splatters is immensely addictive once you get into it. I plunged into a 3 hour straight session because I couldn’t put it down. I just wanted to unlock more levels and achieve the highest score. It is a casual game at its core and it’s great for a quick distraction, but it gets challenging at times and requires quite a bit of effort to truly play right and have fun.

The graphics are that of a cartoony art style mostly found in casual games like Angry Birds. It also adds to the said psychotic undertones, but that’s just me. The level designs could have been done better though and it looks a bit “tacked on” in places. The music is an adequate ambience of relaxing jives that make you look forward to blowing those little bastards up and laughing at their blood dripping on balls that explode

Have I mentioned this game is psychotic?