The XBLA game features tunes from folks like Moby, Orbital, Philip Glass and more, giving your Xbox 360 a bit more music cred. And if you want to feel even better, a purchase of the 400 Microsoft Point game will go to the charity OneBigGame.

If that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, the darn good Splosion Man can also be had for the low low price of 400 Microsoft Points this week.

The show even offers an early look at ‘Splosion Man developer Twisted Pixel’s next game, Comic Jumper.

Plus there’s some diving in a cold lake by Keighley and the creators of Trials HD (pictured above, of course). A debut of a multi-touch version of my favourite of these very good games, Osmos. Oh, and full disclosure: Someone who may or may not have written this post appears in this show as a talking head.

The games featured in the show are the nominees for the best indie game category in this Saturday’s Spike Video Game Awards. (More disclosure: Kotaku is part of the judging panel.)

The half-hour show premieres tonight on Spike at midnight. Check your listings. Celebrate indie games. And… let me know how I did?

Kotaku AU Note: Anyone know if we get these Spike specials on Foxtel?

That’s what our fiery hero does, blowing himself up to jump, bounce off walls, ignite exploding barrels, and turn enemies into piles of meat. Every face button on the Xbox is mapped to ’splode, with the controller’s right bumper performing a suicidal reset, which ‘Splosion Man can use should he ever get stuck. That never happened in my playthrough of the Xbox Live Arcade game, a fast paced sprint and ’splode escape from an underground science facility that’s an incredible 50 levels long.

Should you fire up a download of ‘Splosion Man, or is this one-mechanic pony a dud?

Loved
Rapid Fire Fun: ‘Splosion Man can be a thrilling roller coaster ride of chained explosions, requiring expert platforming skills, lightning quick reflexes, and many, many deaths. It can be frustrating at times, as it’s nearly impossible to know when or where one should ’splode to make the next jump, with dangerous pools of toxic waste and hovering platforms sometimes annoyingly out of view. But Twisted Pixel transitions the player from death to rebirth in a flash, with amazingly fast reload times, lessening the pain of re-re-repeating a level.

Dynamite Presentation: The titular ‘Splosion Man is awesome to behold, a gangly matchstick of a man with a permanent grin on his red hot face. His running animation is always changing, always clearly insane, which makes just watching our heroic platform jumper a treat. Catchy music and amusing character design—enemies burst into a rain of hams and steaks—make ‘Splosion Man easy on the eyes, if ultimately a bit repetitive. There’s even a great visual pay-off for using the “Way Of The Coward,” the level-skipping option one will be presented with upon too many deaths.

Hated
Hangs From The Ledge Of Greatness: And boy can ‘Splosion Man become repetitive. There’s very little variety to the game’s visual design, with the game’s 50 levels split up by a tiny collection of bosses, characters we’d rather forget than revisit. The game’s sense of humour can quickly become grating, especially when one’s banging their head against a particularly tricky section. ‘Splosion Man also suffers from some camera quirks—it pulls out too far at times and angle oddly at others—that are responsible for some eye-rolling deaths.

Like Twisted Pixel’s previous Xbox Live Arcade entry The Maw, ‘Splosion Man is a very good game that just narrowly misses the mark of greatness. It’s priced lower than what it offers, which is a very capable platformer from an increasingly impressive developer. There’s plenty of replay value here, thanks to a great multiplayer mode and time-based challenges.

With the exception of a few annoying personality quirks, ‘Splosion Man is one of the best game’s XBLA has to offer. Certainly one of the most original, even if all you do is explode.

‘Splosion Man was developed by Twisted Pixel Games, released on July 22 for Xbox Live Arcade. Retails for 800 Microsoft Points ($10 USD). Played single player game to completion, tested multiplayer.

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U.S. Xbox 360 owners who shell out the 5600 Microsoft Points necessary to net them Splosion Man, Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, Turtles in Time Re-shelled, Trials HD, and Shadow Complex between now and August 31st will get an extra 800 Microsoft points added to their account, basically cancelling out the price of Splosion Man. From a monetary standpoint, it amounts to getting $US80 worth of Microsoft points for $US70, which is a pretty good deal no matter how you look at it. Of course, if you don’t buy all five games you get nothing, but that’s the price you pay for not paying the price for everything.

You’ll be playing Twisted Pixel’s swell-looking Splosion Man much earlier than previously planned, on July 22nd, according to the updated schedule from Xbox Live’s Major Nelson.

Later, on August 5th, you’ll get access to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles In Time Re-shelled on XBLA. Not a bad trade-off. If only we could do something about those prices, though…

We’re getting one big release per week starting July 22nd and running through August 19th, when the Summer of Arcade promotion delivers its last quality title and we revert back to plain old, unexciting Xbox Live Arcade releases.

Festivities kick off on July 22, with the release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time Re-shelled, the remake of what many consider to be the best TMNT title. (1200 Microsoft Points)

On July 29 we get another remake, though I’m not sure if Marvel VS Capcom 2 counts as a remake. The HD health bars are certainly nice, but I suppose re-release is more appropriate in this case. (1200 Microsoft Points)

August comes in with a bang with the release on the 5th of Twisted Pixel Games’ Splosion Man, revisiting old-school platforming goodness with an exploding hero for a new age. (800 Microsoft Points)

Trials HD races onto Live Arcade on August 12, a physics-based motorcycle racer that lets players create and share tracks via the magic of Xbox Live. (1200 Microsoft Points)

Last, but not least, Chair Entertainment returns to Xbox Live Arcade with Shadow Complex, a 2D shooter created using the Unreal Engine 3, set in the world of Orson Scott Card’s novel, Empire. (1200 Microsoft Points)

Definitely an impressive lineup this summer. I might end up collecting the whole set.

File ‘Splosion Man under “E3 Games I Wish I’d Played.” Apparently, it was there, but I was too busy waiting in line and watching hands-off demos. After seeing the game’s E3 trailer, I’m more than a little bothered.

After all, I liked ‘Splosion Man developer Twisted Pixel’s previous effort, The Maw. And I like 2D platformers rendered in attractive 3D. And I enjoy explosions. So the combination of these things, plus the mechanic of using explosions as your primary means of dealing with any obstacle, just sounds like something I’d be into. Call it synergy.

‘Splosion Man will be part of Microsoft’s Summer Of Arcade Xbox Live Arcade promotion, so expect it this Winter.