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There are a few basic premises you should follow when trying to impress a video game crowd. The first rule of thumb is explosions; a close second is robots, zombies and, of course, robot zombies. Knowing how cool it is to blow things up, the idea of having them blow up around you while running seems to second nature. At least, this is what appears to be the case in Screwjumper!.

Another original offering from the Xbox Live Arcade, Screwjumper! is a game dedicated to the destruction of everything; or more accurately, everything inside any given mineshaft. The game centers on a group of rebel mercenaries called the Screw Jumpers and their well-known hatred for their former employer, the EAC, which is a gigantic alien conglomerate stretched across four worlds. The Screw Jumpers hatred stems from being unemployed now that machines have taken over excavations of the mines. The Screw Jumpers now work for the highest bidder to get by This in turn leads to numerous jobs to destroy the mines they once created.

The story serves as a very thin backdrop for the action within the game, as the characters, events and plot in its entirety seem intentionally farcical, with obvious good reason. The little justification for anyone interested is there — any who not already busy with blowing the mines to another dimension — which is really the entire purpose of the game.

You plummet your Screw Jumper from the very top of the mine wreaking as much havoc as possible with the weight of your own body and a nifty supply of dynamite as you try to meet the quota of destruction to cause the weight of the facility to crumble on itself thereby setting off a nuclear explosion from the mine's core reactor. You must dodge obstacles and avoid walls along the way, and if you are in fact the mad bomber the game requires you to be, when the bottom is reached, a quick escape is necessary to finish the facility once and for all.

The entire affair is timed, and failure to meet ample destruction will mean your own. You have a limited amount of dynamite (luckily you can acquire more) but certain objects are to be avoided at all costs. Molten Lava Jets and Boulder Obliterators range high on the do not touch list, as increased momentum will do only so much for a human. The most peculiar enemy in my eyes is the Damage Cloud. The only thing made clear is that the damage cloud is in fact harmful. Do not touch the Damage Cloud.

Most of the game's enjoyment is centered on the extreme immanency of death in close proximity to your character. Everything has the potential to kill you and will if given the chance. The greatest foe, of course, is time, as you have little of it going at such high speeds. Slowing down is an option, but choosing to do so will make you painfully aware of all the ways you can die if you aren't paying close enough attention. What took away from the desired effect of no room for error was the fact that your health can recharge with every object you destroy, softening the essence of the hectic environment trying to be created. Should one-hit kill measures have been used? Maybe not, but the health regain seemed too generous and took too much from the excitement and stress of impending doom.

I definitely thought that while heavy techno pop was the way to go for background tracks — like the health system — it failed to lend itself fully to how fast everything should have seemed. The music should have created an even heavier emphasis on speed, to match the visuals. Instead of feeling an awesome loss of control toward the end of the levels as I was escaping the reactor core, I often felt the same as when I was diving into them. With so little at stake - extra explosive pick-ups, health regeneration, and a soundtrack that doesn't quite match the visual pace - you don't quite feel in any more danger when you finish the jump than when you started. There's no sense of a "quickening" pace.

The multiplayer might be good, but I couldn't find a single match in a week's time of playing; and believe me, I tried. The design lends itself to a good race to the bottom and back to be sure. A nice change of pace does lead to several different modes, which lend some cool replayability that you will actually get the chance to enjoy — unlike multiplayer — with, of course, varying difficulties and rules.

Timed runs are as standard here as anywhere, and race mode offers multiplayer versus CPU. The best offering here is endurance mode, in which you only are awarded three lives through the game's 20 levels and must make it to the end intact. This is definitely my favorite mode, as it offered the swift uneasiness of navigating these mines with failure close at hand as motivation that was lacking in the regular story mode. The closing levels of the games especially excelled in this mode because of how close you were to the finish line and how easily you know you could fail to get there.

As seems a running theme with arcade games on the whole nowadays, the difficulty is the weakest point. The ill-fated health system already in question, the biggest complaint I had came in the form of the actual ceiling of success. The game is simply too easy. The scoring system does not lend itself well to many replays of each individual level, as it seems that you either scored with ease incredibly well on your first run or that the levels don't offer much variety for skill in the first place. If the game fails to give any reason to better your score, it truly begins to hurt itself in breaking one of the first basic rules of arcade. If the ceiling of success is too low, you hit it too fast, and in turn, become bored with what you so easily conquered — an oversight to be sure.

All in all, Screwjumper! is riddled with cool ideas under bad execution. Everything here seems to have a great place to build from when it comes to a really fun game, and in the course of the experience, I definitely enjoyed some of the faster moments Screwjumper! offered. Overall though, it's disappointing to see a game with promise falter because of simple refinements in overall mechanics. With so many polished examples of high score havens on XBLA, Screwjumper! comes as a hard choice for anyone who would have to step away from an already deeper experience in difficulty and variety. Unless you have someone to race down the mineshafts against, I suggest you approach with discretion.