Hamsterball Review

Hamsterball successfully combines the charm of Super Monkey Ball with Marble Madness-like gameplay for a fun and easy-to-play puzzle game. Instead of using a marble, though, you use your mouse to guide a hamster in his ball down a series of levels laden with tricky ramps, twisty tracks, and various hazards to try and reach a goal area as quickly as possible. The levels get more and more devious as you go along, including retractable bridges, pencil-thin ledges, and even areas where gravity shifts direction, forcing you to roll along "walls." The time you save from each level is carried over to the next, so to keep progressing, you've got incentive to keep retrying levels until you've beaten them in the most efficient way possible. Multiplayer elements are also included with a variety of arenas and tracks. You can do split-screen racing with a friend down tracks, or play up to four players in knockout matches by plugging in additional input devices.