Hands-on | Madballs in… Babo: Invasion

combat are the Chompiis, a rolling ball of Star Wars’ Sarlaac-esque mouths that will split into smaller versions, a la Asteroid. Even better for racking up a big score, and it teaches you never to rush through a swarm as you would do in Geometry Wars, as you’ll find yourself surrounded by smaller versions of the antagonists you just chewed through with your weaponry.

//Full metal jacket
The weapons are, without a doubt, the most delightful selection of weapons I’ve seen since Metal Slug X. Mini guns, dual machine guns, rocket launchers and flamethrowers are but a few of the ten-plus bits of weaponry you’ll be using to tear through friend and foe alike, and the ingenious thing about them is they all have two modes of fire. Now, it’s easy to assume that by two modes I mean machine-gunning, then lobbing the odd grenade from an under-slung attachment. This assumption couldn’t be further from the truth. Think back to Ikaruga, where your weapon consisted of two polar-opposites of white and black ammunition, and by using the right type on the right enemy, you did more damage. Now add the elements of fire, ice, laser, bullets… you can see where I’m going with this.

Every enemy, and for that matter, every multiplayer character bar your avatars (as, in the interest of fairness, Play Brains have wisely opted against classes for Avatar mode) has a weakness to one particular element. If it’s ice, and you’re sending flames into the oncoming horde of enemies, fear not, as you’ll still kill them in good time, this being a far less punishing game than Ikaruga. However, switch to snowflakes, and it’s a massacre. A simple tap of the A button will switch ammo types, and it’s enjoyable to have that extra element of skill injected into a fire-fight that could be taken as quite generic at first. Your aiming reticule is your point of reference for finding weaknesses, a shield in the middle telling you they’re resistant (along with the enemy sending off a glowing “force-field” visual effect around themselves), and a red skull telling you you’ve found their Achilles heel.

Scott claims that “the Lobber is really a weapon for multiplayer,” working in the same hold-for-distance firing scheme as the mortar weapon from Gears of War 2. However, it’s dual-ammo, so you’re either firing ice boulders once every so often, or a quick flurry of flaming rockets into an oncoming rush of antagonistic fury. It’s a beautiful weapon to behold, and after seeing it tear apart not one, but two boss enemies, we’re quite inclined to argue against his relegation of the weapon to playing with people online. When you think about it, wouldn’t you rather have every weapon become a viable choice in both single and multiplayer, than veering away from the pickup because “it’s a multiplayer weapon”? Weapons in Halo suffered from their blatant gearing towards either one mode or the other, and in our eyes Madballs suffers not at all from the same problems.

//Keep your friends close
Now, a lot of multiplayer titles on XBLA tout their “amazing amounts of fun and joy” to be had when hooking up with some mates over a few rounds of Uno, or nowadays maybe even some Connect 4. However, this is rarely proven to be the case past the initial fun evening with a new title. With Madballs, you’re given sixteen-player skirmishes and the ability to even build your own maps in “invasion” mode, one of the most inspired game mechanics I’ve encountered in a shooter.

At the start, you and fifteen people (or one other person – the only player minimum on any map is one per team) choose tiles to place on a wireframe map, and slowly build up an arena in which to kill each-other. After the layout is decided, everyone on the respective teams votes for where they want

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