Nintendo is all about platform games. Since Mario, Luigi, Banjo-Kazooie, and Donkey Kong specialize in platform adventures, GameCube owners have plenty of this ever-popular genre.

Sony does not specialize in platform games. But with the PlayStation2 library at 400 games, PS2 owners have plenty of platform games to choose from.

Xbox, on the other hand, is a little platform-challenged. There was an awful awful game called "Azurik: Rise of Perathia" for Xbox. I think a Crash Bandicoot game came out for Xbox, and "Max Payne" was sort of a platform game.

But now Microsoft is publishing a platform game of its own -- "Blinx: the Timesweeper."

Blinx is a bipedal cat from a futuristic world that seems to have borrowed its look from the movie "Brazil." He is a janitor, working in what appears to be a factory filled with janitors. This sketchy description was pretty much all I could figure out watching the noninteractive movie at the beginning of "Blinx: The Timesweeper" ("Blinx"), one of the big Xbox games that Microsoft has up its sleeves for the 2002 holiday season. Storyline really does not matter much in games like this.

"Blinx" is an action platform game, a game of the Super Mario, Sonic The Hedgehog, Crash Bandicoot variety.

These games are mostly self-explanatory. You take a hero through mazelike levels gathering coins, rings, or fruits and bashing minor minions of an evil army. These games feature minor monsters by the drove, be they Mario-style mushrooms and turtles, or Sonic-style robots.

In "Ghouls 'n Ghosts" they were zombies and demons; in "Gex" they were Frankensteins and Sumo wrestlers. The monsters are often context-sensitive. Gex battled Frankensteins and bouncing Jack 'o Lanterns while exploring haunted houses, Sumo wrestlers and ninja while in Japanese levels, and aliens while in outer space.

And Blinx, well, he has a colorful menagerie of fairly inoffensive foes that come in the forms of flying octopuses, bouncing blobs, and vacuum-mouthed frogs. Blinx's adventure takes him through a comically twisted version of Venice (Italy, not California -- think boats, not biceps), canyons, caves, and ancient ruins. As he explores, Blinx uses his vacuum cleaner to suck up barrels, planters, gears, bombs, and other debris that he spits at enemies along the way. All of this may sound pretty generic.

Kirby, the ball-shaped hero of several Nintendo games, sucks up stuff and spits it at enemies. Yes, Blinx is a cat that walks on two feet. But how different is that from Sega's hedgehog?

Blinx is a janitor; Mario is a plumber. Bubsy (Bubsy 3-D), Gex, and Maximo (Maximo) have all explored canyons. But Blinx is different. His vacuum cleaner also controls time. Blinx's world is filled with perils. Bridges collapse, enemies are invulnerable except from well-protected angles, and some chasms are nearly uncrossable.

When running into obstacles like these, it pays to have a time-controlling vacuum cleaner. Say you need to cross a bridge that recently collapsed. Most game heroes will simply need to turn around and look for another path. Not Blinx. He rewinds time, re-erects the bridge for a few short moments, crosses it, and goes on with his adventure.

For him, the manipulation of time becomes a puzzle. He can hurl himself across alleys by recording himself jumping on one end of a teeter-totter, then replaying himself while standing on the other end.

Blinx can freeze bad guys by hitting the pause on his vacuum. He can also bring himself back to life with rewinds.

Of course, like any magic power, Blinx's time sweeps are limited.

To power his sweeper, Blinx must collect crystals. The surest way to get these crystals is to kill enemies. Blast a blob or a frog and heart, star, triangle, moon, or other crystals appear in their place. Each crystal controls a timesweeping function.

Collect three or four hearts in a row and you receive a rewind. Gathering three or four moons buys you a pause. The trick is to wait and pick up the crystals in order.

"Blinx" is a good game with appealing art and good controls. Nothing kills the fun in an action platform game worse than unresponsive controls.

The game does suffer from 3-D camera problems. The camera generally follows Blinx from behind. When he turns corners or moves through narrow alleys, the camera often loses him behind walls. This sometimes enables monsters to take a free shot at Blinx. Camera problems are an old annoyance, however. With very few exceptions, all 3-D platform games have suffered from this for the last seven years.

My other complaint about "Blinx," and this is another small one, is that the game has time limits on every level.

Battling monsters and negotiating mazes is fun, and I like the exploration and crystal gathering, but why add the artificial limitation of racing against the clock?

That said, Blinx does not have the charisma needed to become the next Mario. "Blinx: the Timesweeper" is a good game and proof positive that Xbox will satisfy gamers of all ages. Will future iterations of this game make Blinx a household word?

Only time will tell.

And, unfortunately, even for "Blinx" there is no timesweeping in the real world.