Game review: De Blob

The evil INKT Corporation has outlawed colour, music and fun from the city of Chroma - turning its citizens into mindless drones. The once-vibrant Metropolis has literally had its colour sucked out of it, leaving a monochromatic town devoid of joy and cool. Now it's up to the Colour Underground Resistance Group (CURG) to bring back the "salad days". So far, so weird...

You play the title character, who suffers from a kind of visual incontinence. Starting off as a clear mass of goo, De Blob picks up various colours by smashing into the many paint pots found waddling along the streets. Once De Blob is oozing with paint, it jumps and squishes over various buildings and landmarks - returning their colour and freeing the enslaved. Incidentally, you can also create other hues by mixing up different paint pots – capische?

A crucial aspect to De Blob's success is the music. The soundtrack develops as you begin to rebuild Chroma's palette in a manner reminiscent of the fantastic trance-inducing rail shooter Rez, released on PS2 in 2002. Each colour has a corresponding musical riff that plays in time with the soundtrack as you paint, so by the end of the level a veritable jazzy symphony has been created.

I find Time Trials an unwelcome addition to most games because the added pressure always plays havoc on my nerves. However, while it would be fair to say that De Blob's levels are just one time trial after another, the game is so generous with its time bonuses that I never felt any undue pressure.

Although De Blob's colouring-book style of gameplay is very simplistic, the overall experience is an oddly satisfying one. This is helped greatly by very smart audio design and an overall gaming experience so polished that you can almost see your own reflection in it.