The Maw -- All In One.

I had so much fun with 'Splosion Man that I decided to play Twisted Pixel's first game, The Maw. While 'Splosion Man is a 2D platformer, The Maw is a 3D platformer with some puzzle elements. The premise of The Maw is that you're an alien who has been captured by some intergalactic science lab and or zoo. The ship you're on crashes, allowing for you to escape along with Maw, who comes off as pet like. He's essentially a one-eyed purple mouth. He'll eat almost anything. Each level plays out with you leading Maw around, feeding him enough creatures to make him grow. Once he's grown large enough he'll be able to eat larger creatures that will change his shape and enable special powers that will allow you to get through the puzzles of the level. Rinse and repeat through seven stages. Like 'Splosion Man, the characters in The Maw are charming. And that goes a long way to making the games more enjoyable. The Maw is sort of impressive as an Xbox Live Arcade title. I say sort of because of the existence of both Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie on the system. It's sort of unfair to make the comparison, but they're the same basic genre on the same platform. I enjoyed The Maw, it gets an 8.