Blinx 2: Masters of Time & Space
Xbox has had a rough time to get a decent platform game on the market. When Blinx: The Timesweeper was released, it wasn’t too bad, except for some options you couldn’t use optimally. Blinx 2: Masters of Time&Space had to improve that so let’s see what has been cooked up.
A nest of cats with brooms and a bunch of avid stealing pigs, that’s my short opinion on the game but there’s more. As soon as you put the disc in your xbox, you get an intro that tells us the story. After a big explosion, three pigs stagger over your screen and reveal a big crystal with which you can mess up time. The pigs call themselves the “Tom Tom Gang” and want to steal the “Big Crystal” to make up some bad plans with it. Someone of course has to intervene and Blinx, the brightly colored cat with vacuum-cleaner is the one to do it.
In this newest Blinx adventure you don’t play with Blinx but with your self-designed character. You start off with Blinx’s basic template and can then adjust everything to your own liking including giving your creature a name. After this design experiment you can also choose a team after which a rather easy tutorial. For those that remember the original game: the time-system isn’t like in the original anymore, this time it works as it should and is a lot less frustrating.
As stated before, our feline has a vacuum-cleaner. No, it doesn’t have a bad case of dirt anxiety, it’s your weapon in the game. By pressing the right trigger long you can suck up all kinds of things like bombs, trashcans, wheels, etc. Pressing is shortly gives you the possibility to shoot these things you sucked earlier towards your opponents. There’s also a shop where you can get different models of cleaners, each with its own properties of course.
To buy new stuff you need coins (or did you think money falls out of thin air ?). Throughout the levels you can suck up these coins and turn them in later at the shop.
Next to coins and stuff to blow at your opponents, the levels also contain time crystals that appear each time you get rid of an enemy. These crystals can be used to manipulate time and as such you can for instance repair a broken bridge by doing a rewind. Each crystal has its own color and form and you’ll recognise the symbols from your cd-player.
New in this game is the possibility to fight with one of Blinx’s arch rivals, your very own Tom Tom gang member. Like with your cat, you can design your own pig and team. Then you again get a tutorial and all the goodies of a gang member. You play alternately with both characters and this makes the game varied, but believe it or not, you HAVE to play with both the cat and pig to be able to progress through the game.
Your Tom Tom gang member also gets different weapons like a catapult, banana peels, pistols and… a blowup doll! Of course these dirty pigs also have time manipulating weapons like their grenades. With your pig, the idea is that you crack safes and get rid of cats. Be carefull though as you don’t want to get spot by the cats or they’ll get rid of you. It all sounds a lot like Metal Gear Solid to me.
This platform game doesn’t have online possibility but that isn’t necessary as it offers enough possibilities as is with a multiplayer mode where you and your partner can do the complete singleplayer campaign, fight each other or even go into Deathmatch with up to 4 players.
Thanks to Blinx 2: Masters of Time & Space, Xbox has gotten itself a good platform game! The sequel to Blinx: The Time Sweeper is pretty good, the extensive gameplay and the appealing graphics all deliver. The game sometimes gets repetitive and is somewhat confusing with the different personalities though. Maybe the ability to play with a Tom Tom gang member was a bit over the top, but for the rest we get a truly decent platform game!
8.0
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