‘Splosion Man, currently available for the Xbox 360 on Xbox Live Arcade, is a 2.5-D action platformer where the goal is to “splode” your way through levels.

You play as a guy who can ‘splode himself - which essentially propels him into a jump. The controls are simple - A, B, X, and Y all do the same thing; yeah you guessed it, ‘Splode. You can also perform wall-kicks, akin to many platformers like the more recent Mario games. Of course, instead of just kicking of a wall, you ‘splode off of it.

However, the game’s not so simple once you get going. The catch is that you can only ‘splode three times while in the air before either coming back down to the ground or briefly sliding down a wall to recharge your ‘splode-ability.

The game moves at a fairly quick pace. ‘Splosion Man is a little reminiscent of class Sonic games because you want to run as fast as you can to the end a level. Actually, just running isn’t enough - if you continue to run at length without exploding, ‘Splosion Man starts yelling “bored bored bored bored bored!!” because he’s not exploding! Talk about A.D.D.!

While the first few stages aren’t much of a challenge, the difficulty ramps up. Levels require very good timing and platforming skills in order to ‘splode at just the right time. Moreover, you have to set off switches, jump onto moving platforms, avoid spikes, kill scientists (and watch them hilariously explode into hunks of meat), and so on as you run through stages.

All in all, the game is very well done. There are 50 single-player levels and 50 unique co-op levels as well. In co-op mode, you can play with up to four players either on Xbox Live or locally. Co-op requires a a lot of coordination since players can jump even higher by ‘sploding off one another.

Excellent replay, great graphics, and fast gameplay make this one a stand-out game. It’s going for 800 Microsoft Points ($10.)