8 /10 1 Votes
71% Metacritic Writer(s) Soshi Kawasaki Initial release date 7 October 2002 Publisher Microsoft Studios | 8.8/10 IGN Artist(s) Masamichi Harada Platform Xbox | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Producer(s) Katsunori YamajiEarnest Yuen Composer(s) Mariko NanbaKeiichi Sugiyama Release date(s) NA: October 7, 2002EU: November 8, 2002JP: December 12, 2002 Similar Artoon games, Platform games | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Cgrundertow blinx the time sweeper for xbox video game review
Blinx: The Time Sweeper is a platform game developed by Artoon and published by Microsoft Game Studios. It was released for the Xbox on October 7, 2002. A sequel, Blinx 2: Masters of Time and Space, was released for the Xbox in 2004.
Contents
- Cgrundertow blinx the time sweeper for xbox video game review
- Blinx the time sweeper gameplay xbox hd 720p
- Introduction
- Plot
- Time Controls
- Blinx as a Mascot
- Reception
- References
Blinx the time sweeper gameplay xbox hd 720p
Introduction
Advertised as "The World's First 4D Action Game", Blinx: The Time Sweeper is a third-person platform game, in which the player controls the titular character Blinx, an anthropomorphic cat, who is on a mission to prevent the end of Dimension B1Q64 and rescue its princess from the evil Tom-Tom Gang. Blinx is outfitted with the TS-1000 Vacuum Cleaner, with which he can exert control over time itself through five unique "Time Controls": slowing down time, speeding it up, recording himself, reversing time, and stopping it entirely via pausing.
Plot
The player takes on the role of Blinx, an anthropomorphic cat who works as a Time Sweeper at the Time Factory, a facility located outside of Time itself that is dedicated to the creation, distribution and maintenance of the flow of time throughout countless dimensions and the universe as a whole. Whenever Time Glitches are found in any part of a dimension, Time Sweepers like Blinx are dispatched to whatever dimension the Glitches are in to locate and correct them before they solidify into Time Crystals. If left unchecked, the Crystals will manifest themselves into Time Monsters, and said Monsters will roam freely among whatever dimension they're in, disrupting time and distorting whatever they come into contact with. However, when the Tom-Tom Gang, a malevolent army of pigs, begin to steal and destroy countless Time Crystals in a dimension known by the codename "B1Q64", it becomes unstable to the extent that the Time Sweepers decide, for the safety of all other dimensions, to halt the supply of time to it, suspending it and its inhabitants indefinitely. But when Blinx spots Princess Lena, the monarch of Dimension B1Q64, being held hostage by the Tom-Tom Gang, he enters the dimension via the Time Sweepers' Time Portal moments before it closes to rescue her.
Time Controls
Blinx's TS-1000 Vacuum Cleaner allows him to control time itself through six different "Time Controls": Rewind, Fast Forward, Pause, Record, Slow, and Retry.
To gain Time Controls, Blinx must first collect Time Crystals. Time Crystals appear as shining, floating, spinning crystals in the game world. Blinx can collect the Time Crystals in any order, but when he holds three of a particular Crystal, he gains one use of whatever Time Control it is, and if he holds four of a particular Crystal, he gains two uses of that Time Control. Said Time Controls are stored in the TS-1000, up to the maximum number of Time Holders Blinx possesses.
Blinx can trigger any of these first five Time Controls at any time:
There is a sixth Time Control, called RETRY. This Time Control cannot be triggered manually, it is triggered automatically when Blinx is knocked out by an enemy or lost to an infinite chasm. If Blinx holds no RETRYs when he is knocked out, the game is over.
Blinx can hold any combination of REW, FF, PAUSE, REC or SLOW up to the number of Time Holders he possesses. He begins with three Time Holders, but you can gain up to 10 as the game progresses. The Time Control RETRY requires a special type of Time Holder, called a Retry Holder. Blinx begins the game with three Retry Holders, but can hold up to nine (an allusion to the lore that cats have nine lives).
In each stage, Blinx must travel from the Start Gate to the Ending Gate, eliminating all Time Monsters that exist on the stage. Each level has a time limit of 10 minutes.
Blinx as a Mascot
GameSpy suggests that Blinx was proposed as a possible mascot for the Xbox system, rivaling Nintendo's Mario, Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog, Sony's Crash Bandicoot, Namco's Pac-Man, and Capcom's Mega Man since the main character of Halo: Combat Evolved (Master Chief) was considered too violent (and also lacking in identity behind a visor). Due to the game's unpopularity, it never achieved the suggested goal and Master Chief is unofficially seen as the mascot, though Blinx was in fact proposed as the mascot for the Xbox in Japan for a while.
Reception
Blinx was met with a mildly positive reception upon release, as GameRankings gave it a score of 73.09%, while Metacritic gave it 71 out of 100. GameSpy included the game in its "Most Overrated Games Ever" feature. Although the graphics were generally praised, the game's execution, notably the control method, was considered to have resulted in the game being too difficult. Saleswise, by 2003, 156,000 copies were sold. In 2003, Blinx also entered the Platinum Hits range (as part of the all-age Platinum Family Hits).
GameSpot editor Greg Kasavin gave it a score of 6.3 out of 10, noting that players get a sense of relief from completing a level, rather than enjoyment or satisfaction. Electronic Gaming Monthly gave it 7.5/5.5/8: the second reviewer found the game to be tedious and repetitive, but the third believed that "issues aside, the unique style and play mechanics make [it] stand out". In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of 31 out of 40.