The paucity of genuinely good titles for the Wii has tested the patience of even the staunchest of Nintendo fanboys; the amount of tripe currently clogging the shelves of your local game emporium (I'm looking at you Mr Ninjabread man) has made the clamour for a half-decent game more intense. As I sat down for my first slice of de Blob action I had a heightened sense of expectation after many recent disappointments - would this finally be the title that jumped out of the diluted waters that we call the Wii back catalogue? Can de Blob rise above the mediocrity and reach the heights of such luminaries as Super Mario Galaxy et al? Well, the answer is "almost".

de Blob is a 3D platformer set in Chroma City, a place inhabited by small blobs called Raydians. The Raydians peacefully lived their lives until one day an evil dictator by the name of Comrade Black entered the city, using the military muscle of his INKT Corporation to suck out all of the colour, dooming the Raydians to a dull and lifeless existence. You see, below de blob's colourful exterior is a deep message, kids: dictatorships are bad. Crazy Comrade Black believes that a colourless country is the model for all societies and thinks that draining the colour away will enhance them as a race. The Graydians, as they are now known, have become enslaved, so it is down to the lucky few colourful Raydians who managed to escape the claws of the INKT Corporation to save their grey fellow blobs.

Blob is the hero of the piece, aided and abetted by his team of specialists, who are collectively known as The Colour Underground. It is your task to locate the Paintbots that store the city's colour and absorb its contents, which then needs to be distributed back into the surrounding areas. Using the Wiimote and Nunchuk, you can move Blob around the city streets as well as clambering up buildings to spread the colour. The controls are relatively simple and the Wiimote doesn't really offer anything extra that a normal controller can provide; a downwards slam is used to retrieve colour from paintbots but this can also be achieved by just rolling into them, steering via the Nunchuk. Other than that, the Wiimote is used sparingly and doesn't really add anything extra to the game.

As you return the colour to Chroma City and increase the vibrancy of the place, new sections become available to explore, the colour's energy opening up enemy defences. However, the deeper you travel into the city, the tougher the resistance to your presence becomes. Booby traps and the rather comical Inky troopers patrol on foot, on bikes and in tanks but they aren't the savviest of enemies, serving as little more than an annoyance that hinders your progress.

Chroma City is quite immense and spreading the colour throughout entire sections of the city can be time consuming, as well as being so much fun. Obsessive compulsive sufferers be warned, it is quite a challenge on some of the later levels to successfully colour 100% of these regions, as I discovered, but the game leaves you with a great feeling of satisfaction as the city starts to burst with colour again. As you restore colour to Chroma City, other members of The Colour Underground set you tasks to complete that speed up the process of returning the city to normal. However, after a while, the challenges can become quite monotonous, as the tasks are of a similar ilk; in fact, there are only four types to accomplish. The one that reoccurs the most challenges you to decorate a group of buildings a certain colour within a set time. The other tasks range from racing to a marker in the city by following a trail of flares to returning a landmark back to its original state by infiltrating it and depositing a certain amount of paintpoints within its inner sanctum. Considering that most regions of Chroma City have at least twenty challenges to complete, this can get a little tiresome; however, the other aspects of the gameplay make up for its repetitiveness.

As well as the vibrancy of the colours, the game really comes to life with a fantastic array of musical accompaniment. As you drench the buildings with Blob's colours you're treated to a blast of funky beats to accompany the background music, which bobs along quite nicely throughout the game. If Blob is distributing a certain colour to the surroundings then you might get a funk guitar riff or a cool sounding wind instrument. With various combinations of colours available the music changes frequently and is a really neat touch. You will soon find a colour you like using the most based on what sound you want to listen too. The mixture of pure fun gameplay, a large slab of humour and a great soundtrack are the three vital elements that make this game work.

Just on a slightly negative note, while the gameplay is great, the camera angle is sometimes a hindrance and needs to be moved manually to get a good view of the surroundings. It does take a little edge off the game and frustration can creep in but it's a minor nitpick for a game that is visually very easy on the eye.

The developers must have realised early on how addictive de Blob would be; as well as providing a story mode they've also included a free paint mode where you can repaint the city and replay the story levels without the worry of time limits and enemies. This is very therapeutic and a great way to chill out in Chroma City. de Blob also has a multiplayer option called Blob Party for up to four players. Blob Party raids the 'videogame multiplayer minigame vault' and includes various incarnations of minigames previously seen elsewhere, but lavished in a de Blob makeover. Paint Match asks the players to paint as much of the level as possible whilst under the threat of losing claimed areas by other players painting over them, while Blob on the Run gives one player the ability to paint while the rest have to slam him or her to win the privilege back. Blob Race rounds off the minigames with a straightforward race around the city, returning the colour to certain flagged buildings.

de Blob is fantastic fun that provides hours of enjoyable gameplay and will leave you tapping your foot and humming the soundtrack for weeks to come. If the variation of tasks in the story mode had been a little more interesting then it might have scored slightly higher, but unfortunately the repetitiveness does detract from what is otherwise an imaginative title. Wii software developers, please take note.

Reviewed by Mark Carlton for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).