Gamermall.com rating: N/A

de Blob is a game that works on Wii for a few key reasons, the first being that the simple graphical presentation – cel-shaded-esque, let's call it – looks good on Nintendo's system. The second is that while you actually control the main character with the nunchuk's analog stick, effortlessly rolling the paint-soaked ball through environments, you use gestures to jump, to link together wall jumps, and to stomp enemies. There's a tactile feeling to performing these maneuvers.

In the Gamer's Day build we played, you're able to try out a single story level known as The Last Resort, which is de Blob's introductory stage. It acquaints you with the premise. The evil I.N.K.T. Corporation has outlawed color in Chroma City and it's up to you to fight the good fight. You won't use fists, but color, re-painting the dulled world and restoring order as a member of the Color Revolutionaries. Comrade Black, the dictator of the I.N.K.T. Corporation, has planted traps and deployed troops to stop you before you can paint away the gray. And it's really that simple.

The Last Resort also serves as a gameplay tutorial, teaching you basics of level challenges and the fundamentals of controls so that you may accomplish your goals. As you explore the worlds, you will earn points by painting the structures, linking together combos, picking up collectibles and stomping out enemies. You may also need to use your head in order to advance. Paint bots are located throughout the world and if you roll over them, your gelatinous hero will immediately take on their different colors. Certain situations require that you mix different paint colors in order to make new hues. You might need to paint a series of buildings a certain color which is not readily available. As you earn points, you open up gateways to different sectors and eventually the exit gate, which enables you to leave the stage and advance to the next.

Swing down with the Wii remote and your blob will jump into the air, which is obviously useful for the many platforming tests that await you. Press the B button and you'll brake in mid-air. You can press the C button on the nunchuk to center the camera or D-Pad left and right to swing the camera around. You can additionally execute a highly useful overhead view by pressing up or down on the D-Pad. If you press and hold the A button, you'll see the smart ribbon, which shows you the nearest challenges and objectives, nearest paint bots, nearest water hydrants (these enable you to wash color and start anew) and more. If you hold down the Z button, you can target paint bots, enemies, and landmarks, and if you swing the Wii remote while doing so you will jump to these targeted objects.

Sadly, the tutorial stage only scratches the surface of the later challenges in the game, according to THQ. Even so, we're particularly impressed with two components: the ability to string together combos by wall jumping; you can really rack up the points this way. And the ability to roll over target spots, which, when the Z-trigger is held, enable you to zigzag between several different areas, advancing vertically up levels as well as horizontally through them. We can foresee some great gameplay opportunities as the levels become more advanced.

We got to play through two of the game's sprint stages, each sporting unique challenges. In the first, the goal is merely to stomp out hordes of enemies before they can take down the hero. You roll around the stage avoiding enemy attacks, lock on to foes by holding down the Z button, and then motion downward with the Wii remote to smash them good. If your timing is right, you can link together multiple stomps and obliterate groups of foes in seconds. If not, you're certain to fall victim to the enemy, and in the sprint stages you only get one chance so you'll need to restart the whole process. In another more compelling stage, the goal is to get from the bottom of a building structure to its top, across a walkway and then to a gateway on the other side. Much easier written about than done, we might add – it took us several attempts before we could record a video of the process worthy of posting.

Finally, we dabbled in a few matches of two-player split-screen multiplayer. (The game supports up to four-player split-screen, but there's no online component.) The split-screen bouts are surprisingly enjoyable – we've turned our noses up at split-screen gaming in recent years, but we have to admit that de Blob's offering is addictive. You and your friends all control different colored blobs, each with the ability to paint the world a unique color. As you roll through the environments, you will see competitors turning buildings yellow, red and so on, and you can choose to re-paint the objects your color – say, blue – or roll to another part of the landscape altogether. Each is a gamble. If you roll over objects painted by your opponents, they will lose the points they achieved for them and you will get them, but by the time you re-coat everything, your competitors may have colored even more structures. Alternatively, you can simply try to paint as many objects as possible before time runs out without worrying about what your friends are doing. Don't get totally lost in your art, though – if someone sneaks up on you, they can stomp you, at which point you'll lose your color.

Developer Blue Tongue has purportedly hired a popular Australian band to supply de Blob with a specialized (and exclusive) funk-filled soundtrack for the game – a huge improvement over the subdued music we heard in early builds. The studio is also attempting to match the coloring of objects to the music dynamically so that the beats change the better you play. On a technical side, de Blob's style has certainly won us over and the developer has injected a few graphical bells and whistles into the presentation, too. For instance, paint splatters more realistically onto buildings now and the splatters themselves feature different texture. Water shimmers realistically, too. Of course, everything runs in 480p and 16:9 widescreen formats, too, so that always makes us happy. The biggest downside is that the framerate is still inconsistent at parts – something that will absolutely need to be addressed before de Blob ships. We want to see the end experience running bare minimum at a locked 30 frames per second and ideally at a fluid 60 frames. Even so, there are some third-party Wii games that need to be on your radar and de Blob is undeniably one of them.

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