Written by: Alex

 

 

 

I do solemnly swear not to make any ball jokes or tea bagging references throughout this review.

 

Does anyone remember "Madballs"? Or am I the only one old enough here? It would not surprise me if I were. They were something of a fad back when I was seven. I was too into 'Action Force' (GI-Joe) and 'Transformers' to really notice, but I saw kids playing with the toys or talking about the cartoon in the playground.

 

While I was never ‘in to’ them they did make enough of an impact for me to remember them and I guess in the modern age of remakes, sequels and other general mining of old IPs, that is enough to qualify them for a game.

 

 

Given the general quality of franchise reboots I will confess my expectations were quite low heading into this 'Babo: Invasion'. Without even any lasting nostalgia for the characters I was expecting little more than fan service. So it was a rather nice surprise when what I got was an entertaining shooter with a number of novel twists.

 

As a simple top down shooter the game system is simple. You roll around the environment taking on a variety of opponents. Being a ball slopes and momentum affect you, a small but difference but it does serve to set Madballs apart from the usual arcade shooter offerings.

 

Starting the games campaign you control the "Oculus Orbis", who looks to all intensive purposes to be an eye and is the traditional starting well-rounded character (sorry, I promised no jokes didn’t I). As you progress in either the story mode or the multiplayer you unlock more characters and weapons. Unlockables offer a number of stats and power variations from your initial options.

 

 

It’s a decent story, but not quite up there with the length and depth of "Point Lookout".

 

Character speed and defensive abilities differ significantly from each other while their powers serve to enhance either aggressive or defensive methods of play. Where character variation plays more into you preferred style of play weapon selection is more situational. Range, speed and power all play a role, but the stat effects (heat/cold, physical/energy) of each guns two different firing options make a vast different to your success in a fire fight against resistant opponents, especially in the multiplayer game.

 

Another shock was the amount of personality that the developer "Playbrains" managed to squeeze into the characters. It isn’t even the character models it is the voice work. The voices and unique one-liners for each character manage to toe the line between being annoyingly cheesy and entertaining, to the point that you laugh and groan in near equal measure, but in a good way.

 

As I mentioned the camera angle is a little strange. Basically it is a very familiar top down fair but something about the scale and angle seem less than perfect. You always feel like the angle robs you of any long distance vision while not giving you any of the benefits rear view. Usually the camera remains serviceable, but in some instances (usually against bosses) you do find yourself blind firing off screen to enable you to keep your distance, something that may have been avoidable by dropping the camera a few degrees down behind your character.

 

 

The single player campaign is a good length. It comes in the form of a relatively standard arcade style shooter with a few fetch quests and sneaking sections thrown in for good measure.