Review by: Brandon "Color Underground" Cackowski-Schnell

Of all of the games released on the Wii that would gain the most benefit from a jump up to a more powerful console, de Blob would have to be it. That's not to say that the game didn't look great on the Wii, however the colorful nature of the game, as well as the premise of turning large expanses of a city into a riot of color and patterns screamed for the computing power provided by the 360 or PS3. Enter de Blob 2. The jump to the more powerful systems benefits the game immensely despite its targeting issues and an inflexible save system which taints the color of this platformer ever so slightly.

When last we saw Comrade Black he was hanging out on a small desert island, the result of leaving a plane without the benefit of a parachute. While investigating Black's last known whereabouts, de Blob and his new paintbot sidekick Pinky find that not only has Comrade Black left the island, but a strange cult led by Prisma City newcomer Papa Blanc is slowly indoctrinating citizens and leeching color out of the city. Once again it's up to de Blob and the Color Undergroud to return Prisma City to a vibrant, cheery state. All of this is told through some of the funniest cut scenes around despite some pretty adult themes such as religious cults, forced labor and the horrors of professional ice dancing.

The same 3D platforming from the original game is back with some small changes. The wiggle to jump of the Wii version is thankfully gone, even when using PS Move, replaced with a much easier tap of the X button. Targeting where Blob sends his gelatinous mass is performed by pressing the left bumper. The game will automatically target the closest item with targeting changes accomplished by moving the right thumbstick. The targeting system works great if all your doing is smashing objects with abandon, however when surrounded by enemies that all require de Blob to be a certain color to destroy, a nearby paintbot is too easy to automatically target and change Blob to a less useful color. Once those same enemies start tagging de Blob with life stealing, black ink, it gets even more annoying. Still, rolling up on a group of lesser inkies and gleefully smashing them, nearby paintbots, trapped Graydians and supply crates all by frantically mashing the X button never gets old.

The game is divided up into 12 expansive levels, with each level divided up into three or more sections. Along with the story missions, each level contains goals for rescuing all of the Graydians, cleaning up the environment including buildings, trees and billboards and smashing all of the INKT Corporation items. Each section has missions that need to be completed in order to reveal a Transform Engine which de Blob can smash to restore color to that section of the level. The move to smaller, more manageable missions helps, rather than the race against the clock method of the first, but the save system still leaves much to be desired.