I won’t make trite jokes about how this game has more explosions in it than a Michael Bay film, they’re not as funny as one might think and would only trivialize what a solid game Splosion Man is. It’s the latest Xbox Live Arcade release from Twisted Pixel, the same company that made The Maw, and Splosion Man is all about guiding a mutated man through a series of side-scrolling platformer levels, but there’s a twist: Most of the normal actions you know have been replaced by the ability to explode on command.

Imagine if you will playing something like one of the earlier Mario games, but being unable to do a normal jump. You’re supposed to explode to propel yourself around, and it’s through applying this single action in several ways that you make your way through the game’s dozens of singleplayer and co-op stages. You jump by exploding, you do advanced moves like triangle jumps by exploding several times in a row, and generally... you explode as a means of travel; I can’t put it any more simply than that.

This emphasis on mastering everything about a single concept gives Splosion Man an appeal a lot like Braid or Portal, inspirations the game’s Achievement List readily admits to. While ’twitch skill’ and speed will see you through many parts of the game just fine, others require that you truly understand the physics in Splosion Man, resulting in a game that is sometimes about fast-paced action and at other times more of a ’physics puzzle’ platformer. It starts out very easy to learn and play, though later stages can admittedly induce some frustrated screaming. There was nothing I couldn’t get past through dedicated practice or a little help from friends and online hints however, so I can’t come down too harshly on its difficulty.

Despite this, Splosion Man doesn’t take itself too seriously. The titular character is an enthusiastic spaz, randomly making airplane noises while running about and yelling "bork bork bork!" as he chases down the scientists tormenting him through various stages. The same sort of whimsical graphics and humor from The Maw are on display in this game too, showing that Twisted Pixel has some knack for making simply designed but nonetheless amusing characters. There are even a few things that I’m assuming are clever commentaries or parodies on trends in gaming, such as a tutorial coming up well after its hints are relevant and scoring Achievements for just remapping your controls (hint: every single button mapping you can change does the same thing; explode) or watching the credits.

While each stage can be completed in just a few minutes, you get a lot of them... about fifty for single player, and another fifty for co-op. Both modes work fairly well (though some sort of exploit must exist, since the Leaderboards tend to be overrun by obvious cheaters), and speedrunners in particular will love them since two of the major things you’re scored on are completion time and whether you found the hidden cake on each stage or not. This lends some replay value to those interested in such things, and even playing through once normally ought to be worth your while.

At 800 Microsoft Spacebucks/$10, Splosion Man is one of the least expensive games in the Summer of Arcade 2009 lineup. But this ’physics puzzle platformer’ was a fantastic way to start that promotion, with excellent single-player, local co-op, and online co-op through dozens of stages. It’s easy to learn, but gets satisfyingly difficult later on. And the folks at Twisted Pixel even included some free Gamerpics and Themes as unlockables (I’m told there may also be Avatar items in there too, but do not currently have any way to verify/test this), which was a pretty classy move on their part. Aside from some occasionally very difficult levels, I have few complaints worth making toward Splosion Man, and I strongly recommend you try it out.