Flowing with de Blob


According to psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 'flow’ is the mental state a person reaches when they are fully immersed in a task. Commonly known as being ‘in the zone’, Csikszentmihalyi isolated nine elements that occur when people flow, among them a distorted sense of time, clear goals, and a sense of reward. In the past decade only a handful of video games have catapulted this writer into that euphoric, engaged state of mind: the first two Katamari Damacy games, Call of Duty 2, and now, de Blob. While I’ve felt different levels of engrossment playing other games, these three titles have provided a prolonged and complete sense of immersion.

de Blob’s engagement is derived from its synergistic combination of elements that are masterfully interwoven together. While playing the title, there are always multiple activities vying for the player’s attention. Even on the loading screen, players can doodle, or unlock pieces of the game’s narrative. Once the player in dropped into the game’s city, thing open up even more. Player’s can bounce along streets, instantly adding splashes of paint to buildings, revive trees, fight enemies, or activate mini-missions. The whole experience seems reverse-engineered around an OCD thought process- there’s always something to complete.


On top of these proceedings is the skillful mixing of sight, sound, and color. As the city grows increasingly vibrant, so does the soundtrack. A simple botched component could have pulled the gamer out of their immersive interlude. In anticipation of this shortcoming, de Blob wisely errors on the side of ease, rarely allowing frustration to tarnish the proceedings or bring the gamer back to reality. When things do get challenging in the sixth level, the gamer is proficient enough to confront the escalation of difficultly.  The title doesn’t want to punish the player or slow their progress, but wisely maintain them in a state of captivation.

Those who solely play games for deep storylines may be one of the few groups disappointed by de Blob. The games narrative centers around a group of fascist, monochromic invaders named the INKT, who strip Chroma City of its color and life. It’s up to the player to return happiness and verve to the city’s chromatically deprived environments. While characters are drawn with a nominal complexity, they still display personality and mood. Players control de blob with the nunchuck’s analog stick, leaving a lingering paint path behind them. Contact with any building instant covers the walls with a luminous pattern. Players can also lock onto objectives and enemies by holding down the ‘Z’ button; a flick of the Wiimote then sends de Blob hurling toward the target. While some may fault the lack of a jump button, we found the controls precise- we were able to nimbly navigate around the city effortlessly.


While a fluctuating framerate often ruins a sense of immersion, gently reminding the player that they are playing a game, de Blob rarely has any problems maintaining a 60 frame per second framerate. Occasionally, a minor screen tear will show, but overall the title is as fluid as Super Mario Galaxy. Instead of dazzling the player with huge amounts of polygon-pushing, the game strives to charm the player with vibrancy and an overall sense of effervescence. You have to be a pretty jaded gamer not to enjoy the sensory delights the title holds.

In closing we can’t recommend the de Blob enough to Wii owners. It’s an original, family-friendly game that deserves to sell enough copies to warrant a sequel. We’d love to see what other concepts developer Blue Tongue can perfect to captivate us once again.

Final Grade: A

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Posted by DesertEagle at 9/25/2008 7:47 PM
Categories: Wii,Reviews
 

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