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The Xbox is fairly light on platforming games, and even lighter on mascots. When Xbox launched a few years ago, Blinx the cat was probably the closest thing Microsoft had to a mascot. While the original offered up a decent platformer worthy of a bit of play time, it didn’t really scream ‘must buy’. A good few years later, Artoon is back in the fray with a sequel to Blinx, but does it change things up enough to attract a bigger audience than the first?

Blinx 2 strays slightly from the elements that make up a traditional platform game, making it play a bit more like something in the vein of Ratchet and Clank, which is, in a way, a kind of platform/action hybrid. There’s a big emphasis on gadgetry, and even some stealth thrown into the mix, which helps keep the game varied.

In the original Blinx, you took control of Blinx, the games hero, and that was it, period. This time around players will have the chance to not only play as the feline controllers of time, but also as the Tom Tom Gang, a group of pigs that are after shard of the almighty time crystal. This means that gamers never actually take control of Blinx himself this time around, but instead feline and porkers of your own creation.

Instead of throwing you into the feline fray as some pre-created character again, Artoon has gone the create-a-character road, allowing you to create your very own personalized feline (and pig) fighter. Change things like ear size, tail length, shoulder width, hair color, suit color, etc. The level of detail you can actually go into while creating your character is surprising for a game of such a nature.

The storyline for Blinx 2 is pretty basic, and somewhat familiar. The Tom Tom Gang is a group of pigs seeking to gain control of the Power Crystal. The Power Crystal, like all other Power Crystals, will grant the owner some kind of great and almighty power. Well, the Tom Tom Gang finally gets to the Power Crystal in the opening movie, but then it explodes and its shards are scattered all over the world. Let the insanity ensue. Now it’s up to the time controlling felines to get the shard before the Tom Toms, and vice versa. The story really isn’t all that interesting in itself, but the execution of the storytelling is humorous, and at least keeps you entertained as you play through the game.

During the course of the game, you’ll switch between the Time Sweepers and the Tom Tom Gang, making use of each of the teams specific talents. The Time Sweepers, as you could guess, play nearly identical to playing as Blinx a few years back, only with a couple new time warping abilities. You can pause, rewind, fast-forward, and do bullet-time style dodges, which help them solve the games many time-related puzzles.

On the flip side, the Tom Toms can control space. This opens up a new kind of play for the game, including warp tunnels, space bubbles and the like. The gameplay is fairly different for the two camps, and the tweaks are enough that you’ll find yourself liking one side more than the other, which is both a praise and curse at the same time. That is, that while it offers up some variance in gameplay, it also means that one half of the game may not be as fun for some gamers as the other half, since they’ll grow a preference for one side over the other.

The single player game is good enough in its own right, but Blinx 2 really begins to shine when you’re playing the co-op missions with a friend. The novice mode allows 2 players to go through the game normally, and Specialist mode encourages you to use either fighter or time sweeper styles. I have to say playing with a friend was a more enjoyable experience overall.

The game also boasts a competitive multiplayer mode where up to 4 players can go at it with their created characters from the single player adventure. Jetpacks and barriers are added to the mix, as well as special ways of using your space and time abilities. There’s a bit of slowdown once in a while when things get really hectic, but mostly plays rather smoothly.

Blinx 2 is a pretty good looking game, offering up plenty of nice texture details, and some great fur-shading on the cats. Bloom lighting is present in full force here as well, alongside some nice reflection work on water surfaces and other shiny objects. Animation work is done very well, and the whole game feels very light-hearted and cartoony. Cats in space suits and pigs in pirate outfits? It may seem like a hard sell at first, but there’s an undeniable charm to it once you get started. Enemy types vary pretty drastically all over the board, and a better percentage of them are rather original looking.

Audio is pretty well done as well, offering up some strangely likable techno-jazzish-carny music as the soundtrack, and some pretty humorously written dialogue to help round things out. Sound effects are nothing special, but they get the job done, and they’re good enough to be considered standard-level at worst.

Blinx 2 is an enjoyable experience, and easily recommendable to anyone looking for a good platformer on Xbox. Platformers are a rare occurrence on Xbox, and good ones are even harder to come by. Some pretty nicely implemented time controlling abilities fulfill the premise started in the original Blinx, and the inclusion of the Tom Tom Gang expands on the formula even more. Fans of the original should have an easy buy here, while casual gamers looking for some fun platforming have a good idea for a weekend rent, at very least.