I almost went the entire rest of my life without remembering that, at a certain point, I was completely infatuated with Madballs. I couldn’t tell you where I got them, who I tricked into getting them for me, or what the hell ever happened to them, but I retain fond memories of always having a couple rolling around in my pocket. As with all things that weren’t Transformers, the momentary attention span of a child was lost on something else and I wound up forgetting these things existed, until I got a review code for Madballs in Babo: Invasion. A brief stop a Wikipedia channeled a nostalgic overload that I thoroughly enjoyed, but the question remained; how, and more importantly, why would someone make a videogame featuring Madballs?
My Balls are in What?
Skip to the chase, the prospect of a Madballs videogame is kind of a farce. Madballs in Babo: Invasion, is apparently a sequel of sorts to a PC game, Babo Violent 2. YouTube videos of the aforementioned game showcase similar gameplay mechanics from a top down perspective. Where as Babo Violent 2 featured weaponized rolling balls, Madballs boasts the visual flavor and personality that goes along with anthropomorphism. It appears we’re looking at a reskinned game which technically only has two “real” Madballs, alongside a host of other original playable characters which, if you didn’t know any better, fit right into the goofy/gross aesthetic. But, while the inclusion of Madballs is more of a cameo than a mash up, it’s worth noting that their status in the game has almost no observable effect on the gameplay.
While the overt appearance of rolling heads strapped with weapons appears quite absurd, the gameplay is hospitably familiar. The single player campaign takes you through ten levels of run and gun action that I can best describe as Loaded meets Geometry Wars with a dash of Marble Madness. Using a variety of weapons and powerups, you’ll roll your way through ten different stages. The stage’s theme and aesthetic changes every time, but the mechanics (killing everything is sight, unlocking doors, and occasionally fighting a boss) generally remain constant regardless of your environment.
Combat, for all its overt mindlessness, is a surprising amount of fun. Selecting one of two warring factions determines what characters you can select and which weapons are available for pickup, and the two rarely overlap. I was honestly surprised at how much variation existed amongst the character classes; speed, HP, and weaknesses were augmented by character-specific special abilities. It also doesn’t hurt that your opposition, especially in the later levels, shares some of the same elemental strengths and weaknesses. Balancing everything out and figuring out who’s good at what adds a bit of strategy to the mix, which is appreciated boost to the otherwise standard run and gun gameplay. The actual shooting is mostly on point; it gets spotty when enemies are on different vertical plane, but the slight aim assist usually makes up for most shortcomings.
A story is present if you require additional motivation, but largely falls flat because of two unfortunate aspects. First and foremost, I struggled to read the on screen text. I know certain 360 games (Banjo, Dead Rising) have had problems on SDTVs and that people often complain the text is unnecessarily small, but I could barely read Babo’s text on my a 42” 720p monitor. The font, with letters right next to each other on top of an edgy style, was nearly illegible, forcing me to stop and read every word rather than take the text in as a cohesive sentence. It doesn’t help that the attached narrative is superfluous nonsense, but I have to give Play Brains’ credit because there is a lot of it, so props to making something out of nothing. And, though the text is lacking, the game is full of well timed battle cries, one liners, and other mildly amusing quips that add a touch of personality and humor to the experience.
If the story doesn’t push you through, the prospect of unlocking a wealth of content should be enough of an incentive. Almost everything in the game, even the alt-fire for some weapons, requires a certain amount of point collection or plain ‘ol bloodlust to unlock. This is sort of a catch-22, because, while the new weapons and characters are certainly worth it, it’s disappointing to scour through the levels and see pickups for items you can’t yet wield or stations for characters you can’t control. You’re forced to start the whole level over when you lose, so you’ll be racking up points/kills in no time, and I’m sure it’s all locked initially to encourage a second play through, but instant gratification isn’t Babo’s strong suit.
And the lack of an immediate reward is somewhat regrettable, because Babo, all the way through, feels like an arcade game from the 90’s. Playing this game and blasting everything in sight reminded me of trips to the arcade when I was a kid; the run and gun gameplay, for all its bells and whistles, is strong on fast paced action, but ultimately lacking in fundamental depth. The class system and weapons strengths/weakness do well to create minor amounts of depth, but they never subvert the run and gun archetype. Babo’s campaign is a good amount of fun and it certainly looks like nothing I’ve ever seen before, but the flair wears off after the first couple of levels.
Misc Multiplayer Mischief
But that’s all somewhat manageable when you consider most of the time and effort behind Babo went into its surprisingly robust multiplayer. First and most appreciated, the entire campaign is playable with four other people. The number of enemies scales to how many people are playing, though I still found a couple bosses quite a bit easier (and more enjoyable) with more guns on screen.
Babo also runs off the checklist with a host of other familiar multiplayer modes. Skirmish and Team Skirmish are your traditional deathmatch modes, but each differ from the norm with the addition of kill based multipliers and point pickups. You can’t use weapons you haven’t yet unlocked in campaign, but points accrued in multiplayer go into the same pot from campaign mode, which thankfully expedites the unlocking process. Minor stat tracking, CoD4-like prestige ranking, and rankings (also for campaign levels), do well to give you a reason to keep coming back, but what’s really outrageous is number of available maps. Twenty one (!) are available from the outset and, much to my simultaneous surprise and satisfaction, they weren’t all copy and paste pallet swaps.
Capture the flag and a death match mode where you use your avatar’s heads (seriously) are also present, but what sets Babo apart from the norm is its titular Invasion mode. According to the press sheet, this mode should function like fellow XBLA title, Carcassone. The intention is for each team to “build” their half of the map by allocating map tiles to their liking. In theory this sounds awesome, but in practice it operated from a scattershot approach where idiots didn’t seem to learn anything through trial and error. Playing with friends definitely has its benefits in Invasion, and I’m sure after a few weeks the people who are there to just goof around will thin out, but, regardless, the mode has potential.
