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Saturday, September 19, 2009

Madballs in... Babo: Invasion Mini-Review

Madballs in Babo:Invasion

Today I stumbled-upon a game on Steam called Madballs in... Babo: Invasion, a 3D shooter/arcade game created by Indie developer, Playbrains.

In all honesty, I've never even heard of the game before today. I was curious, so I searched for a demo on my Steam client and downloaded it. Took about 5 minutes to download/install. Started it up. The demo offers two levels: Boot Camp(the tutorial level) and First Contact, the first out of ten singleplayer levels.

The boot camp level basically gives you a feel for the controls/gameplay and what not and when you're ready, you can test out what you've learned by playing the First Contact level.

The game is simple. You take control of a ball in which you roll about the areas, gaining experience, finding and unlocking better and super awesome weapons, etc, all while defeating enemies that cross your path. There's also two camera modes, the default one that hovers over your Madball and top-down view mode. In my opinion, the default camera is the way to go.. and you can rotate the camera any way you want.

(Just for reference, for anyone who doesn't already know, the two characters: Oculus Orbus and Horn Head are actual "Madballs" from the popular bouncy ball toy back in the mid-80s. I use to play around with them all the time when I was much younger.. wow... crazy, the 80s.. wow!)

After you've beat the first level, you can take on the second faction(Scorcher). It's basically the same level, but with different characters and new and exciting weapons to choose.

Also, each character you control has two abilities each that you unlock by gaining experience. For example, the Magmor character can grow into a giant molten lava rock and can easily crush anything in his path just by running them over, for a short time.. really cool. Each character has it's own unique set of abilities.

And there's 4-player co-op, 16-player multiplayer, with 21 maps to choose from, Invasion Mode(build your own side of the map before each match starts and then battle it out in different maps each time!), 5 versus modes, over two factions, lots of classes, voice chat, unlockables and secrets, leaderboards, in-game steam achievements, and much, much more!

So to sum it all up... Madballs in... Babo: Invasion is a great game that you should own. It's a 3D shooter game with a twist. It's completely different and a really great experience. From the story, the 3D graphics, the sound effects, the music to the controls, gameplay, amazingly super awesome weapons and the great characters, it's all there: A truly unqiue and genuine gaming experience.

I wouldn't be writing this review if I didn't believe just that, now would I? Well, probably, but that's besides the point. lol.. just kidding. No, I wouldn't be writing a review about this spectacular game if I didn't believe there wasn't hours of fun!

So with that said, for this weekend only, you can get Madballs in... Babo: Invasion for $7.99 via Steam. What more can you ask for in a really unique game and at that low of a price? Nothing!

Get going now... the Madballs await!