Madballs in Babo Invasion Review

Written by: Darren Cartledge Posted: 5th August 2009

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Madballs roll on to Live Arcade.

Madballs in Babo Invasion Details:

Goto Madballs in Babo Invasion Game Page

	Action
	Xbox 360
	PlayBrains
	PlayBrains

12+

Out Now

1-12

Many of you may not remember the original Madballs from the nineteen eighties, but these gruesome looking balls proved to be quite popular due to their freakish looks. Now they've been re-released to a whole new generation, so it comes as no real surprise that they are to star in a video game with the release of Madballs in Babo Invasion on Xbox Live Arcade.

Madballs in Babo Invasion on is an arena based action shooter, in the single player mode you take up the role of Oculus Orbus who crash lands on a strange planet and joins the fight against evil madballs.

Madballs in Babo Invasion has the feel of a top down retro shooter, with its simplistic gameplay. The game has you travelling through various maze like levels that see you blasting any enemy you come in contact with. But does this make for an action packed playing experience? Well, no, this is because the game offers very little in the way of challenge due to some questionable enemy A.I which often sees them get caught on various obstacles in the games levels or just outright failing to notice your presence. The game does try to mix things up a bit by serving up some puzzles, but again these are far too basic and offer very little challenge. There are some good points however, there’s a huge number of weapons and content for you to unlock and various characters to play as, each with their own unique abilities and so on. This of course encourages you to play on despite the game feeling rather uninspired and run of the mill.

With all of the above in mind, then you maybe forgiven for thinking Madballs in Babo Invasion is a poor game. However, I’m yet to come to the best part of the game, which is something of a saving grace. Like most Live Arcade games, Madballs in Babo Invasion features excellent multiplayer support.

The multiplayer modes included in the game are all pretty standard, and include modes such as team deathmatch and capture the flag, there are some unique modes however such as Avatar which allows your Xbox 360 avatar to roll around and do battle as a Madball. Multiplayer support has been implemented brilliantly and this allows frantic and pretty chaotic multiplayer battles. The games multiplayer aspect also supports ranking up allowing you to load-out unique combinations of characters and weapons. All this combined makes Madballs multiplayer component extremely good fun and very addictive. In fact the games multiplayer is so much fun that it is probably worth the purchase alone and the single player campaign in turn becomes an added bonus, especially when considering that you can play it co-operatively.

The games visual style is pleasing to look at with a vibrant cartoon styling. Environments are fairly varied and include temples, jungles and futuristic complexes. The game features some nice effects such as those used for weapons fire and explosions as well as those used for characters special abilities. The games audio design is in keeping with its visual style, with exaggerated voice acting that fits the games characters perfectly. The games soundtrack and other sound effects are also highly fitting and done to a high standard.

As a single player experience Madballs isn’t a terribly exciting offering, serving a pretty much run of the mill gaming experience we’ve all seen before. However, it’s multiplayer component more then makes up for its shortcomings providing one of the most fun and frantic playing experiences I’ve encountered lately.