Christopher Thurman

Every year Microsoft gives their Live subscribers a couple of major summer games. This summers weekly gaming has come to a ‘Sploison start with ‘Sploison Man. A must have puzzle game.

Before you start playing you must know that there is only one move that you can do it is sploide. Like I said people it is a puzzle game which you have to find your way around 50 levels blowing yourself up to reach ladders, platforms, dodging lasers,gun shots and fighting machines that come after you. The puzzles are really solid. They are well thought out and you have to use everything tht you have learned from the previous levels. Don’t worry though there is help for you. There are hint markers in the beginning of the level to tell you how to handle the different situations. If you still are stuck the game has a helpers. If you die a certain number of times in the level it lets you skip that level.

The character design in the game also has to be mentioned. The person does not say a word, but they gave him personality. He is even funny. The guy has about a hand full of idle animations that he will go though if you don’t touch the controller. However, why would you want to. You will be so busy trying to figure out the puzzles and once you figure it out there is a time trial mode seeing how fast you can go though each level and it will post your time on Xbox Live leaderboards.

Did I mention that this game has a co-op mode that is different then the single player? The co-op also has 50 levels for you and up to 4 players online or sitting right next to you. If you though that it would be easier with people then you thought wrong. The co-op is harder because not only will you have to use everything from the single player, but you can explode off of other players to reach ledges.

The game also has the other live features that lets live apart, leaderboards, custom soundtracks, multiplayer matches, custom downloades, and achivement. The best part is that it’s only 800 Microsoft Points($10).

I offically finished all of the Kudo tutorial levels. I found the program itself very easy to use and understand. It did remind me alot of Alice. Which is not a bad thing because Alice was also very easy to use, but it does not teach people how to program. Maybe sentax, but not how to program. One of the things in which I do not understand is that the first flash screen tells how it is made for children to be able to use it, however people under the age of 18 can not download it.

Speaking back to the program they give you a couple of 3d art assets with animations that you will be able to use for anything. There are also special effects that can be put into the game or level that you create. Programming is done by putting the commands on when blank happens do blank. Up to 6 pages can be added with 6 lines for every object.

There is some things that I think they should add when they update it for one I would like the ability to easily share things that people create. Now you can only share if they have your gamertag and I believe that the other people will have to have the program also. Then I found out that there is no easy way to set a respawn. Adding more 3d art would be a great addition in the future as well.

This is a very good next step for live. The first being XNA which is very popular. I hope that alot of people start using this because it is very easy to use and an amazing way to get starting making games.