Blinx is new and different, and it has excellent graphics. More incredible, it grafts the TiVo personal video recorder onto your system. Blinx uses the Xbox hard drive to create a VCR-like ability to control time, something PS/2 and GameCube cannot currently duplicate. That alone is revolutionary, and the developers deserve credit. But then, it isn’t a big mystery that the Xbox is working more and more like a PC, is it?

Bottom line: this game is the first real attempt to make a good platforming game, and has the potential to be something great, but sorry to say, it falls a little short. The premise for Blinx is a rather strange one, and unless you’re younger than 13, you won’t be very impressed. In the Blinx world, there is a ‘time factory’ which manufactures time crystals and sends them to the various universes so that time can flow properly. If the crystals stay in the world for too long, then they turn into monsters, in the shape of green blobs or as a blue hot-air-balloon-elephant. You, Blinx, dare to save the universes from these insidious and terrible monsters in order to help the princess in one of the worlds.

It doesn’t sound that bad, and truthfully, the game has its moments. You speak in a cartoonish anime voice, yelling “Hyah!” and “Ahh!” at key times. You sport a blue jacket, goggles that you never wear, a backpack, and a Luigi’s Mansion-style vacuum cleaner. The package ties together into something a little childish, and unless the player is a huge fan of Japanese culture, Blinx could be a hellish nightmare.

Although Blinx certainly isn’t a character that is easily sympathized with, he has rather fluent movements. He can double jump, slide down walls (but not wall jump), shoot garbage out of his vacuum cleaner, and most notably, control time. The time control is Blinx’s only saving grace, as without it, Blinx would be reduced to the shovelware bargain bin.

The way the time travel works is pretty easy. Blinx can hold four timepieces, and he runs around collecting them four at a time. When he fills up, if he has three of the same piece, he gets a bonus. If he gets three hearts, he gets another ‘try’; if he gets three moons, he gets a rewind, etc. This means that whenever you come to a broken bridge, you’ll need to find the rewind pieces and use them to go back to a time when the bridge was up. Normally, the pieces will be right next to the bridge, and you’ll even be able to watch the bridge fall, so the time travel doesn’t do anything but make you say ‘neat’. After awhile, it isn’t that big of a thrill, and knowing that there are 40 different levels in ten environments doesn’t help.

While playing through, I couldn’t help but wish that Blinx lived up to its potential for cool new gameplay. There were no big puzzles, no intense fights, and no real feeling of satisfaction. It took a dozen levels before it felt like a real platform game, with rising lifts, menacing traps, rolling boulders, sharp swinging blades and the like. By then the only thing slowing down the game were the poor camera angles that gave enemies an advantage.

But platformers need a little story, too, and after the first level there are no cutscenes to keep the plot moving. This would have helped with the development of the character. It’s not that I’m a dog person and hate cats, but I never really got that close to the character. Perhaps his limited vocabulary put me off. Maybe Blinx should purr more and yell less. Or perhaps the developers could use the moments between levels to develop things?

It was unsettling to need to go back to earlier levels and re-do them, to get more timepieces in order to fast forward or rewind and get past a problem. Part of the charm of the game was that situations could be solved in more than one way. But it wasn’t that challenging after awhile. Add in the fact that there is no multiplayer and this is one thin game – almost a one-trick pony.

Maybe there was just too much hype; this was voted the "Best Xbox Game at E3 2002" according to the packaging. But that was probably due to the fact that the developers also brought to us Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog. A lot was expected, but it just doesn’t deliver.

If the whole time-travel idea appeals to you, and you want to see what happens when someone knows what to do with a hard drive, then give it a rental. Everyone else, keep waiting. The developers had hinted in earlier press interviews that they hoped Blinx would become the system mascot for Xbox. No way. It’s still Master Chief.