Blinx 2: Masters of Time & Space - Review

Added December 2nd, 2004 by Dakota Grabowski

Introduction:

I have played my fair share of platformers this past fall and winter, while many pleased me, only a few stood out above the rest. It seems a lot of them are generic to the point you can predict the storylines next step to reveal to the player. Others feel bland and have no saving grace to them except humor. Artoon attempts another Blinx game and this time they plan to pack the game with customization. Does it deliver at any levels of higher than the original game fork out? Read on as Blinx 2 is quite an improvement but Artoon still falters where it once made mistakes with the predecessor.

If you are not aware of the Blinx franchise, it began to look like the flagship mascot for Microsoft before it was released in the fall of 2002. It was supposed to be innovative and even carry a great character to make the game worthwhile. When it hit stores, the reception was less than stellar as the critics were unsurprisingly decisive on knocking on what Artoon tried to establish with the series. Artoon was out to create a cute and actually show the power of the Xbox. Artoon implied time control and to be able to control it. Yes, Artoon beat the great adventure game, Prince of Persia to the punch with providing time control on the Xbox. The Xbox had the hard drive and before Artoon used its capabilities, critics and gamers thought it wouldn’t be more than a storage unit. Well Blinx: The Time Sweeper was more of a landmark that was a small stepping stone to encourage developers to tinker with the Xbox’s raw power rather than a historic landmark giving players a great game that would be in their collection forever. The original has too many problems that could have been easily fixed that held it back from being the mascot it should have been. Artoon now has a second chance to prove itself and it has taken care of all the little mistakes that were bashed with Blinx: The Time Sweeper.

Before I move on to the gameplay, Artoon is still quite a young developer still showing its creative side. In 1999 the company was established by former Sega employees that left. Many programmers and designers formally attached to legendary franchises like Panzer Dragoon and Sonic left to be attached to the rookie developer, Artoon. Now five years has passed and what does Artoon have to show for itself? They have worked on the Game Boy Advanced with a game titled Pinobee: Wings of Adventure that didn’t go over to well. Then they created Ghost Vibration for the Playstation 2 that never made its way over to the States but can be found in Europe and Japan. Ghost Vibration is supposedly similar to Luigi’s Mansion that’s currently located on the Gamecube. Those would be Artoon’s only other current products currently available besides both Blinx video games. Artoon clearly is latching on to Blinx 2 to be a success so it can make a name for itself.

Gameplay:

Now that I have been able to clear up some of the past history of Blinx and Artoon, in my eye Blinx 2: Masters of Time & Space only had to surpass the original. The storyline for Blinx 2 isn’t even about the adorable Blinx from the original. You will control either the Time Sweepers (cats just like Blinx) or the Tom Tom group to find a bunch of time crystals across levels. The Time Sweepers are the protagonists of sorts as their intentions are to make sure the crystals don’t fall into the wrong hands while the Tom Tom group has less upstanding idea of what to use them for. If you liked Blinx from the first game, erase him from your mind because he barely appears in the game and Artoon this time concentrates on customizing your own characters.

As expected the game is split into halves due to the fact there are two groups you will guide to find all the crystals. For the most part, the time spent with the Time Sweepers is the closest you’ll get to what you experienced in the original. Time control is what they have mastered and what you’ll be using to collect all the crystals. Time controlling consists of fast forwarding, rewinding, stopping, slowing the game down and even recording what you have accomplished. The Tom Tom’s don’t have the ability to control time but are heavily involved with stealth and sneaking around. The levels the Tom Tom’s appear in will be stealth-based and you will be trying to avoid the Time Sweepers to not be caught. The Tom Tom’s do have the choice of some weapons and gadgets like decoys, banana peels, pause-time grenades. The new ‘Space Control’ is used with the Tom Toms as they can Hypercloak, Warp tunnel, Void Trap, Quantum Snare and Space Bubble. The abilities you’ll be using for the most part will be Hypercloaking which allows you to turn invisible while walking slow and the Warp Tunneling which provides you the traveling choice to go underground and move around.

Graphics:

Visually speaking, Blinx still is able to hold a candle to what is currently leading this generation of Xbox games. The environments are quite large and deliver enough textures to keep you interested in what you will be traveling through. The character models are well animated and show enough emotion for the cute character models. What are missing are the charm and the original artistic look for a platformer/adventure game. Blinx has a more futuristic feel to it but doesn’t show its own personality to make you attached to the game whatsoever. Everything is great technically but to be a platformer, you need more than good graphics and sound animations. If they have any solid point to hang on by is that Blinx 2 rarely falters with its frame rate. Frame rate is excellent and I haven’t encountered a problem yet. Also included in the package is progressive scan support.

Audio:

What is usually found in the current generation of Xbox games is outstanding sound and music. Artoon did a nice job with the audio though it can be on the generic and bland side at times. What Artoon could have improved on was the voice acting as it doesn’t stand toe to toe with the rest of the audio division. The sound effects are very fitting for a platformer and even more humor is included with the effects this time around. The last comment on the audio is that the music tries to intertwine a lot of genres into one. There’s the jazz and classic music that goes along with the techno and anime stylish music. They are all crammed into segments of a song. The music is fun to listen to but I found myself becoming annoyed before too long.

Controls:

The game remains similar to the predecessor so it should become rather easy to pick up and play for fans of the first. What Artoon decided to do this time was no time limits so you don’t have to worry about picking the wrong time control or space control effect. The controls have a substantial amount of depth to them and provides the player several ways to complete a level.

Left trigger= lock on
Right trigger= sweep/shoot
A= jump/double-jump
B= Action/punch
X= activate time controls
Y= Retry
Black= change team orders
White= centercamera
R thumbstick clicked down= 1st person mode
D-Pad= select time control/space control (left/right) or weapon (up/down)

Replay:

In terms of replay, Blinx 2: Masters of Time & Space has multiplayer this time around. Two player cooperative has been included for those who have friends that are interested in a platformer. They can join in at anytime so it doesn’t make it a hassle to play on the fly with a friend. Playing cooperatively will take away the difficulty though but it’s a nice addition to give you some replay that may not be found through the single player levels by yourself. Also included is multiplayer that will allow four players to take base in arena-fighting of sorts. It’s not that deep though.

What’s left to be said about the replay value is that there are no Xbox Live capabilities. This factor imposes what replay they could have had. Without Xbox Live, Xbox games that include multiplayer feel empty and feel as if they don’t have a soul. Blinx 2 is one of those included in that category as Xbox Live should have been put in the game due to the fact it’s published by Microsoft. The inclusion of multiplayer is fine but Artoon didn’t go the extra step to include Xbox Live to increase the replay value in the Blinx 2.

Summary:

While Blinx 2: Masters of Time & Space did improve on the original, they still have some critical mistakes to fix. I’d like to see Xbox Live be enabled with almost every game that offers multiplayer. Next time around (guessing that Microsoft gives them the green light for a third to finish off the series), I’d like to see Blinx return and a much more natural storyline to draw the player into the plot rather than be bored half way through the game. Blinx 2 is a success on its own merits and is worthy enough to garner a third in the series to hopefully match what Sony has done with three Jak & Daxters and three Ratchet & Clanks.