A Unique Clone

There are probably more side-scrolling platform adventure games than there are in any other genre. One of the reasons for this is that it's very easy to create a playable side-scroller without much innovation: Draft a basic, mazelike environment, design a main character, introduce some enemies, some sort of combat, and create a setting, and you're on your way to the races.

Side Scrolling Classics
It's because of the dearth of these games that the true standouts, the Super Mario Bros., the Vectormans and the Earthworm Jims truly do stand out. What these games did was take a genre and turn it on its ear—through creative and inventive new gameplay, striking art, good story, humor, a great lead character, and enough surprises and twists that you just have to keep playing, have to unlock that next level or chapter just to see what in heaven's name the developers are going to spring on you next.

Chicken Clyde leaps into action.

Cloning Clyde, delightfully, does all of these things. It is one of the best platformers in the past several years, and is one of the best values you'll find on Xbox Live® Arcade.

The Tale of Clyde
Cloning Clyde , from Ninjabee Studios (the folks who already brought us Outpost Kaloki X) is a platform adventure game where you play a plain dude—none too smart—named Clyde, who agreed to be cloned for a scientific experiment for the princely sum of twenty bucks.

Cloning Clyde is the perfect game to spend time
with, and it's one that you'll visit want to
visit again and again.

As things so often do in situations like these, something goes wrong, and Clyde is cloned off a few hundred times before the lab is closed off and an attempt is made to cover up the incident and erase the evidence. Clyde, unfortunately, is no Gordon Freeman. Instead of a pipe-wrench, you've got some imitation kung-fu culled from Sunday afternoon chop-socky films, and rather than a high-tech hazmat suit, you've got … well, you've got your bare butt hanging out of a hospital smock.

Clyde 's Mechanics
The basic layout of the game is simple. You start in a sort of lobby, where teleporters lead you to individual levels, all of introductory difficulties, as well as a training level that will help you get to know Clyde and his controls. As you finish the first few levels, doors open in the lobby to the next cluster of levels, which get progressively more complex. Several levels are timed trials as well, which unlock achievements.

Clyde gets ready for platforming goodness.

The objectives of each level are the same, beat the enemies in the level, collect the Killer Ken action figures that were cloned along with Clyde, help the Clyde clones on the level escape, and make your way to the exit teleporter. Getting around the levels involves more than just running, jumping, and kicking, though. You also have to unlock gates and doors and clear obstacles. Sometimes the solution will be as simple as pushing a button, but sometimes it's a lot more complicated.

You may have to climb into a machine to mix your DNA with a rabbit or a frog to make a high-jumping Clyde or a swimming Clyde. You might have to jump in to a cloning device and run off a whole bunch of extra copies of a mutant Clyde, and then switch control to them and put them in different areas of the level. Putting a frog Clyde in a catapult and then having another Clyde catapult him, arms cartwheeling, halfway across the level is worth the download alone.

Clyde 's Comic Look
The look of the game is a Sunday newspaper comic strip come to life. Though the gameplay is strictly within two dimensions, the graphics are fully realized in 3D with depth and shading that is far richer than you would expect in an Arcade download. It is hard to believe that Clyde was developed from the ground up as an Xbox 360™ Arcade title without the budget, dev team, or resources of a larger retail title.

A mutant Clyde risks a precipice.

Little touches everywhere give you the feeling that you're in a living cartoon—weird office furniture in the buildings, environmental touches like the water, weather and foliage in outdoor levels (some of the teleporters take Clyde into strange realms away from the lab), and the look and behavior of Clyde's enemies—none so fearsome as the squawking, exploding, mutant chicken.

The animation of Clyde himself is charming: From his beer belly, dopey expression, loping stride, and butt hanging out of his smock (which can be disabled for family-friendly presentation), to his goofy sound samples. It becomes compelling to get to the next level and see what mutant creature you'll turn Clyde into next. The first few levels alone have you blending Clyde with frogs, rabbits, and sheep. Other, stranger creatures are in Clyde's future.

The Complete Package
The package here is pretty rich—the single-player game alone is the most addictive platformer to come along in years. Let it be said again: This is one of those games that does everything right. It's also one of those games, like Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved, that make a powerful case for the viable market of smaller independent games.

There are a multitude of levels and unlockables, and lots of achievement awards for your gamerscore that cover everything from collecting Killer Ken dolls (but don't call them dolls—they're action figures, only girls play with dolls) to helping Clyde clones escape into the ventilation system, to mutating Clyde into whatever wacky evolutions present themselves.

Cooperative multiplayer and a solid versus mode make this one of the few games since Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell® Pandora Tomorrow™ to cover all the bases and keep you playing continually no matter what your preference is: Single player, co-op, versus, what have you. The holiday release season is still a month away from really kicking into high gear, with only a few sports titles competing for your attention and your dollar until the end of October. It's a guarantee that Cloning Clyde is the perfect game to spend that time with, and it's one that you'll visit want to visit again and again.

Article by Xbox Addict