Customer Reviews

Blinx The Time Sweeper

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Blinx: The Timesweeper is a fun and fairly well made platformer cast in the mold of some classic games but with a new twist: the ability to manipulate time. I read a fair number of reviews on the internet before buying this game and a distressing number of bad reviews nearly dissuaded me from the purchase. I'm quite glad though, that a few poisitve and insightful comments convinced me to take the plunge.

Starting with the basics, Blinx is a three dimensional (actually four dimensional) platformer game. That is to say, you control a character who has to move through large levels and leap about and stay alive while defeating a fairly large number of quirky enemies and rooting out hidden secrets. For a plot you have your basic save the world, get the girl scenario. The controls for Blinx are a little difficult to manipulate at first, not because the scheme is particularly complex, but because of the camera. A faulty camera is the first pitfall in any three dimensional, third person game and the deisgners of Blinx, recognizing this, put the camera in your hands. You choose the angle and can even go into an "over the ears" mode which lets you look around from a first person perspective. The challenge in controlling Blinx is figuring out how to move while constantly manipulating the camera to your best advantage, as "forward" and "backward" and such change with the camera. It can be a little disorienting at times, but that's just part of the game. If you can get that skill down early, a lot of the tougher sequences in the game get a lot easier. Ultimately, Blinx can move and look any which way, you've just got to learn how to make him do it and the challenge is subtle, especially in heated battles where you don't have time to choose your angles carefully.

What makes Blinx special and different are the time manipulation features. If you gather certain cmbinations of special "time crystals", you can alter the game with the stdandard VCR controls: pause, slow, rewind, fast forward, and record. All the powers are cool and useful although they sometimes seem under-utilized, which is to say that there a lot of levels and enemies you can easily defeat without any of the time manipulations. But they are still fun to use, with rewind, record, and pause seeming to be the most powerful. Rewind is most often used to reconstruct crumbled or destroyed features of a level, pause is a useful combat trick to say the least, and record is a multipurpose tool, making you twice as deadly in combat or giving you a spare hand to open special, double triggered doors and such. You can gather crystals by walking over them or by sucking them up with your vacuum cleaner. Blinx is equipped with one heck of a vacuum cleaner and he uses it to suck up garbage to fire at his enemies.

Graphically and musically speaking, Blinx is dripping with cuteness. The graphics are amazing and the landscapes are trippy and highly detailed although there seem to be an awfully lage number of invisible walls keeping you out of some of the nooks and corners. The music is your typical platformer fare, and would have gone perfectly with Sonic or Mario games of the past, although it is more techinically involved than some of those games' music and obviously beyond the capabilites of the older consoles we all played those games on.

Blinx is a long game of standard levels punctuated by occasional boss levels that you move through in a linear fashion. However, you can go back and replay old levels as many times as you wish in order to stockpile gold or to perfect your technique. Indeed, you have to go back to some of the old levels once you have better equipment as some secrets are only accessible once you have used some of your cash to upgrade your vacuum cleaner. Some objects are far too heavy and large for the sweeper you start with to handle.

The most common complaints people have made about this game are about its camera, its difficulty, and its music and feel. Most of these complaints are unwarranted. The camera is challenging to learn to use, but once you do it is quite powerful and flexible. Good games should be difficult. An easy game you can pass in a few hours without dying or having to really think or explore new strategies is just a waste of time. The difficult stages you encounter later in the game go a long way towards giving it that "old school" feel. And finally, the game is supposed to be "cute". If you don't think you can stomach that sort of Hello Kitty brand of cuteness, then Blinx, despite its excellent and innovative glameplay, is not the game for you.

Overall, Blinx is an excellent game for both kids and adults. It is fresh, challenging, and worth adding to the collection of any fan of platformers.

Blinx - what is it? In some ways its a clone of numerous 3rd person 3D Mario-like games. Run around worlds, jump up and down, defeat monsters, save a princess. So why is it being so hyped?

Because it's worth the hype.

Graphics: Superb, a cut above other games of its kind. Each world has its own look and feel - with a color depth and detail that are astonishing. The underwater world alone is proof positive of the care the developers took in making this game.

Gameplay: Simple. You can jump in and figure out the game in minutes. Powers and new gadgets are not difficult to attain - but you do have to think a little to get them. As you get them, gameplay becomes deeper and deeper.

New Twists: The time powers can be described with one word. Fun. Dizzingly fun. It literally does add a 4th dimension to the game. What to do when the river's current was against me, and logs are falling on me as they wash down a waterfall? Simple. Hit rewind: the river's current reverses carrying me forward, jump on a log, and be carried up the waterfall to a section you'd never be able to get to without that power. The full replay of your completed level as your points are tallied is another great touch.

Replay Value: Tremendous. You have to go back to old levels once you get new powers and gadgets, because there is so much more to explore and hidden treasures to find -- and they can only be found with those new powers! Replay was built into the game structure. Add on the desire to get the fastest time on each level, and you have a game that's addictive in the most extreme way. (You have 10 minutes to complete each - another addictive factor. "Hey, I have time for one more level...")

Final word: Blinx is an old concept that is beautifully executed, and adds new twists that make all the difference. Get this game. Be forewarned: you may not be able to stop playing.

I wanted to use my review space not to just reiterate the other reviews on this page as far as game content, but to instead address some GRIPES I've been seeing about this game elsewhere. It is my belief that this game is likely a bit misunderstood.

One of the things I've been noticing in the first wave of reviews of Blinx in the gaming press is that, while it is an innovative and visually beautiful game, it can get EXTREMELY frustrating in later levels, as some gameplay loopholes due to the time controls can cause a level to be unpassable if you don't have the correct items. I've only played this game for a couple of hours so far, and I'm seeing that this game is not merely a Mario style adventure, but a combination of that PLUS Logic Puzzles (not unlike old games like DigDug and centipede), and a little bit of RPG style supply stockpiling. So I'm thinking that getting around the Frustrating aspects of this game would require spending some time playing and replaying several of the first levels (This is necessary because there aren't always enough time crystals to go around.), loading up on gold, and buying a buttload of extra slots for the time manipulation functions. That way, you'll have what you need later in the game, and you won't have to start the level over a zillion times because of one stupid puzzle. (Of course I realize that it could be more complicated than that. A lot can happen in 40+ levels) This game simply requires more preparation than any other platformer I've ever seen, and if that is okay with you, I HIGHLY recommend this game.

Blinx is an XBox game which reaches into the FOURTH dimension - the dimension of time. Use rewind, pause, and record to help solve puzzles and get through levels.

First, the regular gameplay. You're Blinx, a cat that falls in love with a human princess on a doomed planet. As part of the 'time cleanup squad', you head in to vacuum up loose time crystals and to kill off time monsters. There are 10 levels, each made up of distinct stages and a boss.

There's the normal arcady leaping, jumping, shooting of enemies. You look for secret cat-symbols to unlock little videos for fun. What adds an extra element of puzzle-solving is the fact that you can use time as well as skills to get to objects.

Gathering combinations of crystals gives you the temporary ability to work with time. You can slow down, pause, fast forward, rewind or record time for short periods. So say you're walking to a bridge, and you watch as it collapses in front of you. No problem - just stand in front of the bridge and activate your 'rewind' skill. The bridge will go back to its crossable state, and you can cross quickly before time heads forwards again and it re-collapses.

The ability is fun, but there are only distinct areas where you really use it. You see a broken statue, you rebuild it to get to something just above it. Or maybe you rebuild a fallen arch to get through to what was beyond. If there's a spot that requires two buttons to be pushed simultaneously, you record yourself pushing one button, and then play back the recording while you push the other one. For general gameplay, 'pausing' your enemies can be helpful, but you tend just to jump and attack to get through levels.

The graphics are very nice, with the water-ripple effects being very well done. That seems to be true for just about every new generation game, though - something which was once a startling achievement is now almost expected to look realistic. The characters are a bit cutesy, but no more so than Mario or many other jumping-games out there.

On the down side, the bosses can be really nasty and you can't progress to the next level until you get through one. You have a set 10 minute time limit on each section. This can be fine for adult gamers, but the younger ones may be too stressed and unable to complete levels, meaning they are stuck at that point. I've heard a lot of complaints about the camera system. I really didn't find it hard to use at all - it seemed quite intuitive - but maybe with the volume of games I play I get used to the variety of camera styles out there.

Generally a good game, requiring more thought than the average jumper-gatherer game. If it's for a younger-than-teenager, I'd make sure an adult is around to help out with the puzzles and more complex parts, so the player isn't frustrated early and stuck at a standstill.

Blinx:The Time Sweeper is a really good game,but there is many reasons it didn't get a perfect 5 star reveiw from me.

The game starts out with you being Blinx,a cat who works at The Time Factory.One day,while you're at work,the Tom-Tom gang hacks into the computer screens at the Time Factory.They kidnapped the princess and are stealing time crystals.After Blinx all-of-a-sudden falls in love with the princess,he decides to go rescue her.I think the whole rescue the princess thing is a copyCAT (get it) of the Mario games.Mabey the folks at Artoon aren't creative enough to make their own plot...

This is a long game.I've been playing it ever since I got my Xbox,(which was a while ago)and I'm at the last level.Speaking of levels,I think this game would've made an excellent adventure game,but Microsoft just had to break it down into levels...

PROS
Good graphics(but not as good as that of Wreckless and Halo)
You get to use time controls(you can pause,fast-foward,rewind,record,and slow down time!)
Action-packed

CONS
Levels can get extremely hard and frustrating
No way to control where you fire trash(other than facing where you want to fire)
Sometimes the makers(of the game) go overboard with the number of enemies in the game
You have a 10 Min. time limit
Blinx is slow!I thought cats ran faster than that! ;)
There aren't any cut-scenes,except the beginning of the game,and the ending.

Now,on to the time controls,which everybody's interested in.

Pause
Use pause to get an advantage over your enemies,because they will be frozen in time.You can also use pause to solve certain puzzles.

Slow
Slow isn't as useful as pause,but if there is axes flying around,this is especially useful.

Fast-Foward
This is rarely useful.FF sometimes just helps you fall to the bottom of the level!The good thing is,though,is you are covered by a force field while using FF.

Rewind
Rewind helps you in situations,like,when an important item falls down into a lava pit.You can rewind to get it back.

Record
Record is probably the coolest control in the game.You can work with a carbon-copy of yourself.For example,if you're battling with a boss,you can distract him with a copy of yourself,while you take him out.

By the way,DO NOT BUY THIS FOR YOUNG GAMERS!!!!This game is for experts,only.Period.

Overall,Blinx:TheTime Sweeper is a good game,but there are many ways it could have been improved.

My first review, a preview, was right in many ways, and when I look back, I know why this game got so much hype...it's FUN! Here are the basics of Blinx, and why u have to get it NOW!

The basics: You walk around collecting time crystals that match (4 yellow stars, 4 blue moons). Collecting four of the same kind will give u that kind of time control power for up to 10 seconds (which is quite a lot in this game). The controls are: rewind, fast forward, slow motion, pause, and record (which is really fun) in which your shadow does whatever u recorded. Now, on each level, there are a certain amount of monsters (which are quite creative). To destroy them, u have to collect trash lying on the street (suck it up in your timesweeper) and shoot it at them. Once all the monsters are destroyed, u can leave the level. You can return at any time, and in the midst of all this, you have to collect gold. With the gold, u can buy upgrades of your cloths, shoes, jackets, time holders, and of course, your Timesweeper. It is crucial to have the best timesweeper to find secrets. You'll have to play to see what I mean.

Replay Value: Tremendoes, as u can return to each level as many times as u want. Each time is petty fun, too, because u have to find secrets crucial to beating the game (while controling time of course) and collect gold. There are over 40 levels, labled first 1-1 to 1-3, then a boss. Once u beat the boss, u move to levels 2-1 to 2-3. Then beat that boss and then so on. It goes on to level 10-3 then an extremely tough boss. And no, this game is not too easy. I've still only halfway beaten it, and the overall fun never wheres off. This game, as u can imagine, has incredible replay value!

Graphics: The best yet to be seen in many ways. The water looks like clear, real, shimmering water. The landscapes are huge, and every level is detailed down to the last ounce so that u feel like your in a living, breathing world! You can actually see the very fur on Blinx's body, and his tail swishes around in a very cat like way. Everything is beautiful in Blinx: The Timesweeper, and this game really showed (in my opinion) some of the true powers of the XBOX.

Fun Factor: 5 stars! The whole thing is fun as hech. Whether it be controlling time, shooting monsters, to upgrading your weapons, this game has it all. I've spent hours upon hours playing this awsome game, and I know I'll spend hours upon hours more continueing that trend.

A u can clearly see, Blinx: The Timesweeper is a hit, and very innovative. The power to control time is weaved in very well with the superb story, and the overall depth is there. This is a Mario like game in many ways, and yet is more challenging and takes more thinking than that. Blinx: The Timesweeper should be on your Christmas List this holiday season, and will bring joy, fun, and overall excitement to the whole family (plus their are 3 games files). Enjoy!

...the good and the bad.

GOOD:
Graphics; Sound; Future
The graphics are indeed beautiful...spotlessly rendered with dynamic shadows and lighting effects. There is almost no clipping and the characters are rendered quite well.

The sound works well within the spirit of the game and the world it's created. Some of the effects are over-done, but nothing that's worth criticizing.

Read the final paragraph for my take on Blinx's possible impact on the future of console gaming.

BAD:
Story; General Game Play; Time Control; Controls
The story is simply lame. I'll leave it to other reviewers to debate the finer points of it, but I found it uninteresting and really didn't care if Blinx (Feline) ever rescued The Princess (Human). ...The game, to me, seemed rather repetitive. Start with a 10 minute clock. Complete a level. Pool your gold. Buy some new equipment. ...I know that Munch's Oddyssee wasn't the end-all be-all of puzzle games; but Munch's puzzles look like multi-planar differential equations ...when compared with this game.

Now, the time control. It was pretty cool, the first couple of times I used it. After that, it became a nuisence. Like I said before, it seemed rather contrived. For instance, a bridge falls down as Blinx is walking up to it. ...If Blinx has the requiste "Time Control Crystals" he can earn the right to make time travel backwards for a bit, rebuilding the bridge and making it safe for him to run across. ...The controls themselves simply drove me nuts. If you want to rotate the camera to see what's to the right of the little fur-ball, you have to push the right stick to the LEFT. This is CONTERARY TO EVERY OTHER THIRD PERSON ACTION GAME I'VE EVER PLAYED. There is NO way to change this. Not only that, a big part of the game is disposing of "Time Monsters" with garbage that Blinx sucks up into his vaccuum, then spits out at the baddies. This would be okay, if there were ANY way to determine with some certianty where the heck the garbage was going to fly. Without an aiming cursor, you have only the direction Blinx is facing to aid you in aiming. This is, to put it bluntly, terrible; ESPECIALLY because you can't complete a level if you don't dispatch each of the Time Monsters. So, you wind up spewing most of your limited supply of trash/ammo at one or two baddies and wind up having to go find more trash to suck up. ... Blinx might, however, spawn games that ARE revolutionary. The use of the hard drive on the x-box as an integral tool to the gaming experience is a great idea...one I can't wait to see taken advantage of in a more effective way. Look at it as a step on the road to designing a console game that really DOES take advantage of the x-box's capeabilities as a platform...

This game is an amazing platformer only for the Xbox game console. I have to say that from my experience with it, it is excellent. Many people dislike Blinx, and I'm not really sure why, but I'll tell you some of the many great things about this game.

Plot: 4/5
As far as I've seen, the plot is to help Blinx save time from perishing forever and help rescue a character...

Gameplay: 5/5
Use your time sweeper to suck in trash and hurl them at time monsters. Defeat all the monsters in each stage and get to the goal to complete each stage. At the end you are awarded gold.
There are three stages, one shop and one boss per world.

Graphics: 5/5
The environments in Blinx look so weird and creative, like strange, twisted and dark buildings. This is one of the factors that makes Blinx original. You can even see each individual hair on Blinx's head, which is very realistic.

Features: 5/5
Now, here's where the real fun of the game starts. Depending on whichever "time crystal" you acquire one of the following time events:
Pause: This requires blue time crystals. Pause completely freezes all enemies in the stage for a set amount of time.
Rewind: Pink crystals required. Rewind backtracks to stop a certain event from happening (i.e. A pillar falls on to an important item. Use rewind to set the pillar back up and quickly snag the item), or to stop you from dying.
Fast-forward: Orange crystals needed. Fast-forward just speeds things up (including you), and you are temporarily invincible.
Record: Green crystals required. Record duplicates Blinx, so as to do two things at once when needed, or to have an enemy chase after the fake while you attack it from behind.
Slow-mo: Yellow crystals needed. Slow-motion slows down all enemies so you can quickly dispose of them.
Other features of Blinx include finding special "cat medals" and gold to spend at shops for special upgrades and power-ups.

Controls: 5/5
A button to jump, twice to double-jump. Hold "X" to suck in trash, then tap it to shoot trash (keep in mind that you can only hold five trash pieces at a time). Left toggle moves Blinx, while the right one controls the camera. I don't want to go too much into control detail here, so you'll have to find out the rest of the controls on your own.

Overall: 5/5!
This is an unbelievably great game for Xbox, so get it right now and discover its great mysteries!

When I saw this game coming to Xbox, I was really excited as it was coming from Naoto Ohshima, the co-creator of Sonic. He also worked on Nights. It's this very anticipation which makes me so bummed I can't love this game. The design and look is beautiful. The time effects work great. I've got two big gripes. First, this cat is slow. The beginning intro you see Blinx speed off and leap off a bridge into another world. Maybe it's got high-gravity because he almost waddles around. And he jumps about just as well. So much for the speed and agility of cats. Also, the control is of a "What you see isn't what you get" origin. When you push right on the right analog stick, the camera looks left. Wait- is Blinx a boat? No? Then why do I direct him around screen like he's got a rudder. I have never understood what some developers have against simple controls. Push right and you go right. Not too hard to grasp. Would Blinx be a worse game with this type of control? I can't see how, so why add an extra barrier for people. Challenge should come from puzzles and such, not tricky controls.

Blinx is one of the better platformers I've played, and definitely worth purchasing. You play as Blinx, a cat whose job is to fix problems with time. To aid him in his job, Blinx has a number of abilities which allow him to control time, and that's what makes this game unique. You can collect various time-altering abilities such as pause, rewind, and record that will be necessary to solve the puzzles in each level.

For example: suppose you are at the base of a crumbled statue, and want to get at something that's high in the air. Jump on a part of the statue, hit rewind, and watch as the statue re-forms before your eyes, carrying you to the top. Suppose you need to activate two switches at the same time. Record yourself activating the first switch, then play it back, and hit the second while your duplicate hits the first. Sound cool? It is!

With 33 levels (including the final boss), this game will keep you playing for a good while. Many of the levels are rather difficult and will require several attempts, and you'll also have to re-visit old levels in order to stock up on time crystals from time to time. Furthermore, there are medals hidden in each stage that you can collect to unlock secrets in the game, so there is some replay value to be had. (The first few secrets are wholly unintersting, but keep going; the later ones are better.)

So, what keeps this from being a five-star game? Primarily, it's because of problems with the camera. The game's camera will often end up being positioned very badly, and although you can adjust it with the right analog stick, it won't always stay where you set it. Needless to say, this can be very frustrating. It's certainly not enough to make the game unplayable, but you'll likely lose a couple of lives because of it.

A related issue is the auto-aim system that Blinx uses. The game locks on to the nearest enemy to aid you in aiming, which is often helpful, except for one problem: you can't choose which enemy you're aiming at. If you're in the room with two enemies, and the one farther away is the greater threat, you might very well want to take out that one first. But the game will probably aim at the nearer one instead. The only thing you can do is move Blinx into a position where the enemy you want to shoot at is closer. Some way to deactivate the auto-aim would have been very welcome.

Aside from that, we have a few minor problems. There's no story to speak of except for one opening movie, and one at the end. It would be nice if there were some kind of brief story sequences between rounds, but that's not a huge complaint for a platformer. I also would have tightened up the collision detection between Blinx and the time crystals; sometimes when two crystals are very close together, I have trouble getting the one I want without ending up with the other as well.

Bottom line: this game gets a 7.5 out of 10. If they had cleaned up the camera and auto-aim issues, it would have been a 9. The game's problems don't detract from it enough to pass it by, though. Blinx makes an excellent addition to anyone's XBox library.