Video Game Bytes: Splosion Man and Queen: SingStar

Here’s an abbreviated look at some multimedia titles for the family.

• Splosion Man (from Twisted Pixel Games for the Xbox 360, 800 Microsoft Points, $10) The year’s most explosive of puzzling platform side-scrollers arrives as a download on Xbox Live Arcade, bursting with humor and creativity.

An experiment has gone wrong and now is trying to escape from an underground laboratory, which sets the stage for controlling a combustible character. In more than 50 solo levels, a player constantly detonates the fiery fellow (three blasts before a quick recharge) to escape through mazes of dangerous obstacles while consuming cake and wreaking havoc on the facility and its scientists.

Levels require timed jumps in tandem with exploding barrels, exploding up the sides of gigantic steel vices/presses, outrunning concoctions only Indiana Jones would dare challenge, ducking electrical fields and breaking through sheets of plate glass.

The Tex-Avery-on-steroids violence will elicit the occasional hearty laugh as unarmed scientists literally fall into chunks of assorted meats while taking damage from the hero. That might sound a bit disturbing, but watch a Road Runner cartoon or Ren and Stimpy episode and get back to me.

Fail too many times on a level and you can take the coward way option and suffer the consequences of a bad score and having to wear a tutu for the next course.

More astounding, up to four players, each with their own copy of Splosion Man, cooperatively can work through another 50 levels. The teamwork is brilliant, as each character often must explode in acrobatic harmony with the others to reach new levels.

This obvious labor of love dazzles with oozing molten walls, the hot-headed hero performing midair cartwheels and constantly grasping at ledges, and a camera always willing to automatically zoom in or pull back for the player to thoroughly appreciate the action.

Even hitting the pause button pulls back to a screen that reveals a scientist monitoring the escape, a nice touch that could have easily not been included.

Toss in a twisted musical score that sounds as if the Art of Noise teamed up with Danny Elfman and it’s almost too much stimulation for 10 bucks.

• Queen: Singstar (from Sony Computer Entertainment for PlayStation 3, $39.99, microphones not included) Sony’s popular karaoke game extends its musical reach to honor one of the legends of rock.

Pretty much the same options apply as in previous Singstar releases. Singers read the words on the bottom of the screen and match a rhythm/pitch bar while watching a music video. A pair of players can compete against one another or combine talents to sing harmonies on songs.

For the Queen release, standards such as “Another One Bites the Dust,” “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “We Will Rock You” and “Under Pressure” will satisfy the masses while true fans will love trying to croon along with the late Freddie Mercury to “Play the Game,” “Fat Bottomed Girls,” and “Who Wants to Live Forever.”

Good luck matching Mr. Mercury’s vocal range, by the way. I think I’d have better luck belting out a Beverly Sills number.

As always, efforts can be heard on playback or those with an EyeToy camera for the PS3 can capture their performances on video and upload them for the entire Singstar community to watch and rate.

This release also works with the new Singstar audio command feature so players can select songs and work through navigation menus by simply speaking into the microphone.

What normally is the highlight of the game for me, however, watching two dozen classic videos of the band, was a bit disappointing due to the poor image quality. I understand the footage is decades old, but surely Sony could have taken some time to clean up or enhance the resolution considering we are living in the high-definition era.