Madballs in Babo: Invasion First Impressions

Children who grew up in the '80s--back when kids still played with toys instead of video games--might remember Madballs, the hideously ugly and grotesque balls that were specifically designed to gross out your little sister or to be chucked at your friend's head. These soft baseball-like toys are attempting to make a comeback, and the best way into a child's heart these days is through video games. Madballs in Babo: Invasion is an Xbox Live Arcade game in which you can play as Oculus Orbus or Horn Head, two characters in the Madballs lineup. We were told by Scott Simpson, president of developer Playbrains, that the game wasn't originally about Madballs but was about Babo, which are a similar race. Madballs didn't come onto the scene until the developer approached Microsoft with the game and Microsoft suggested that they team up with American Greetings to include the licensed toy. We had an opportunity to meet with Simpson, who came by our office to show us what these rolling Babo/Madballs are all about.

The Madballs, Oculus Orbus and Horn Head, have crash-landed onto the Babo world where a civil war is going on between the Babo and the Scorched. To clarify things, the Babo are the good guys in the story who are fighting against the Scorched. They are all very similar to Madballs in that they are circular floating heads, but they're slightly better looking. That's really all we know right now, and given that the goal of the game is to shoot things, we decided to dive headfirst into the action. Madballs in Babo is an arcade shooter in which you collect multipliers to increase the amount of points you get. You navigate through 10 mazelike environments in the single-player campaign (or play with up to four players online cooperatively), dodging enemies and deadly contraptions while trying to unlock up to 50 secrets, which can include weapons, characters, and other goodies. The game is in 3D, but you're only responsible for aiming along the X-axis, using the controller's analog sticks and trigger buttons to fire. The camera hovers above and slightly behind your character, but you can switch the view to get a top-down view, similar to Gauntlet.

The disembodied Babo come in a variety of flavors, and they each have two unique special abilities. There are 12 different characters to choose from when you play the single-player campaign, which you can play through as a Babo or a Scorched. Between the 12 characters, there are five classes: heavy, support, flying, assault, and runner. The heavy class handles larger weapons better, whereas a light runner will recoil when you fire but can maneuver more quickly. On top of their class-specific features--which determines their basic stats--each character has two special attacks, so you can play around to see what kind of Babo fits your play style. For example, one of the Babo known as Jenkins can drop a life bubble so that teammates can regain health, and Magmor, a member of the Scorched, can expand in size and crush its enemies with its massive weight. These abilities will come in handy during multiplayer matches, but how you decide to progress through the single-player stages is up to you, because you don't have to clear all the enemies to progress. Enemies will leave behind x's for you to pick up as multipliers, and you can find additional x's as well as health in jars strewn about the level. For those who have the competitive drive, there are 56 leaderboards to motivate you, or you can spend the bulk of your time enjoying the game's robust multiplayer modes.

The multiplayer is what sets the game apart from other XBLA games. There is avatar support, so you can import your XBLA persona (just your head) into the game. In order to keep everything rated E10, your avatar is placed in a machine that will "transform" you (in a very kid-friendly way) and inject confetti into your noggin. Normally when your Babo die, they explode in a pile of goo; after being transformed, if your avatar head kicks the bucket, he or she will vanish and leave a festive trail of confetti. You can play with up to 16 players online in five different modes: Avatar, Skirmish (which is a free-for-all), Team Skirmish (if you want to work together with others), Capture the Flag, and Invasion, which is the most interesting mode. In Invasion mode, you and the other team create a custom map by taking turns placing down tiles, similar to the board game Carcassonne. Tile placement is important because there's some strategy involved. The goal of the game is to destroy the other team's base by taking over the majority of the energy nodes on the map to bring down the opponent's protective shields. Where you place these nodes will likely affect how easy or difficult it is to defend your base. The main appeal is that the map will be different each time you play.

Out of the 21 maps that are included with the game, we saw a handful of them and noticed that they each had a distinct theme and unique hazards. Some maps had long ramps, like you would find at a skate park, and speed boosts to launch you across the screen. Some had a stream of never-ending boulders coming at you from all directions. Even though you will be rolling through one maze after another, there's quite a bit of variety in terms of the visuals so that it doesn't get monotonous. You could be in a jungle location in one level and then find yourself spinning through a high-tech-themed lab in another.

What's also worth mentioning is that once the demo is released (in the next few weeks), it will include the tutorial mode, the first level of the campaign, and three sessions of multiplayer matches, up to 30 minutes each match. This will give you ample time to play against 15 other players over XBLA in all of the modes to get a feel for how the game works. We haven't been given a firm release date yet, but the game is scheduled to be released this summer. The price is also pending, but it will likely be in the range of 1,200 Microsoft points. We were impressed with the number of multiplayer features included in this peculiar game of goofy balls armed with high-tech weapons. Unfortunately, there is no offline multiplayer.

Madballs in Babo: Invasion is a fast-paced, easy-to-play game, and there are plenty of areas to explore and high scores to beat for those who are looking for a challenge. We'll update you with more information as soon as it becomes available, but expect the game to launch sometime in the next month.