System: Nintendo Wii

Publisher: THQ

Reviewer’s rating: ***1/2

ESRB rating: Everyone

Game type: 3-D Platform

Kind of like: “Super Mario Sunshine”

Best feature: Although the game has discrete levels, it feels open-ended because you can just mess around changing things to different colors.

Worst feature: Much of the game’s music has to be unlocked. We wish we could have all the music up front.

The bottom line: “De Blob,” a colorful game for the Nintendo Wii, is a lot of fun. Evil black-and-white creatures are sucking all the color out of the land, and it’s up to de Blob, a living ball of goo who can paint things with his body, to restore the color to the world.

As de Blob, you roll around and smash into container enemies who are carrying vials of paint, and change yourself into different colors. Smash a yellow enemy, and you’re yellow. Then smash a blue enemy—now you’re green, because yellow and blue make green. Then, run into buildings, people, trees and everything else you see to turn them from black and white back into color. Leap by shaking the Wiimote.

Scattered around are various challenges that you can take up at will. You might be asked to change a certain block of buildings to a certain color under a time limit. Orange? Where are those red and yellow vials so you can make yourself orange? You’ll have to find them.

There are pools of water around, which will remove your color, and other obstacles. Enemies made of ink wearing little white police hats will try to catch you and make you inky. This will kill you unless you quickly run to a pool of water to wash yourself off.

Hidden objects lying around include style items, which will allow you to paint buildings in elaborate graffiti patterns.