The Weekly WTF: Blob-based Weirdtastic With ‘A Boy and His Blob’

When I was a boy, what awesome, badass-exuding pet did I own? A fish. Named Archie. Now, Archie didn't have poisonous fangs or laser eyes or anything else we wanted our pets to have as boys. He couldn't kill on command (unless ordered to ‘kill' those sad brown flakes that fish eat). Frankly, fish do shit all.

What a bum deal. While Eliot was flying through the motherfreaking air on a magical bike with E.T and phoning home, I had Archie. Leaving those long, weird trails of crap behind him and otherwise being a damn fish.

It looked like Boy, hero of A Boy and His Blob, had the same problem. If TV has taught us anything, it's that aliens crashlanding in your back yard should be something to give an eff about. But look at the freaking thing, just an albino turd with eyes and a mouth.

But that's just what it wants you to think. Give this mofo some jelly beans and hold on to your butt.

In this 1989 NES release, you encounter a refugee from the planet Blobonia (yes, that is wank). It fled the tyranny of the world's emperor, searching for help with a lil' limbless revolution, and crashed its craft in your yard. Accidents are inevitable, after all, when you have no goddamn arms. And so begins a bizarre platform/puzzler.

The gimmick is that the blob doesn't suck nearly as much as you'd think. To overcome the game's obstacles, puzzles and other asspains, it can shapeshift into all kinds of forms. As any jellybean-loving fatass knows, different flavors allow you to change into different things. Your gelatinous buddy can become a trampoline, a weird umbrella/shield thing, a bridge, a ladder, and all kinds of convenient functions beside.

Suck on that, E.T. Do you have the inexplicable, crazy-ass power to morph into a range of everyday Earth objects? No, no you don't.

In the video game world, you don't question this sort of BS. You don't ask things like, what the balls? Where did this little bastard even see a ladder on Blobonia? Sure, the power to change into the contents of a hardware store at will is kinda cool, but... what the hell? Gamers have long become acquainted with the kind of wacky weirdery developers bring them, and that's just the way it is.

A Boy and His Blob was a cult hit for the NES, and recently spawned a rather sexy looking Wii reboot from WayForward. It's a brilliantly novel approach to early platforming; just remember that 'novel' is a euphemism for 'crazy-ass.'