Super Dodge Ball (NES)

Hello to you too.

It's rare that I'll like a sports game but with this adaptation of Super Dodge Ball, I can't help but find it charming while offering an interestingly tactical game. Depending upon where you're from and what you understand of dodge ball, the basic premise is that you have a ball and have to hit people with it while also avoid being hit by it. Hence, Dodge the Ball... Clever that part, is it not? (No... it's dumb). Aside from dumb and obvious naming conventions, the game itself in this case has two teams of six, balling each other to the point where people are trying to avoid being smacked in the face by balls.

Yep, it's going to be one of those reviews.

Odd shaped balls... It's not rugby.

The first team to get hit by the other's balls more times, is out. In this case, there's a health bar system in play too where each character in the centre of the court can survive until they take too much damage and then they're removed from play. Those on the outside of the court cannot be knocked out but don't count towards the winning conditions. So you can slap them in the face as much as you want with your balls, it won't end anything.

Another ice level.... Oh how much I hate these

Each character also has the incredible ability to adjust their balls depending upon how they handle their balls. If running for a short while before releasing their balls, they can turn their balls into different shapes and in some cases, multiply their balls as a sort of "special shot". Being hit by the players balls while in a special shot, can cause more damage or penetrate through multiple opponents if not caught. It all depends upon which character is unloading their balls at the opponent. Though it's hard to remember which character has which effect on the balls and this also changes depending upon running or jumping after running for differing attacks and special balls.

Balls balls balls, balls (ok sorry...).

You win, here's the mirror match in 1950's Russia... Odd location.

It's a 1-2player game with a world tour mode, a straight up versus mode and a more interesting Free For All mode where characters just go mad at each other. In the world tour you'll take on the rest of the world as USA (why?) competing against England (Houses of parliament in the background) Iceland (Slippery floor) India (Taj Mahal and the team has low HP but high Def stats), China (shades of ping-pong tournaments perhaps? And a chance to use Wang as a name) Kenya (playing on mud which drops your running speed stats like mad) Japan for the semi-finals (Not holding onto any war grudges here are we?) and finally Russia. (No surprise there...) followed by a bonus-boss team.

I'm going out on a limb here and guessing it's Mount Fuji in the background.

For controls, you've your ability to double-tap to run, you jump with both buttons (awkward as you're likely to either take a shot with your balls or lob your balls at your teammates rather than jump) shoot with B and pass with A. That's it really. Simplistic but gets the job done and does it fairly well even with another player playing at the same time. There is a slight delay at times because of the large amount of events happening on screen which can throw off your timing and force someone's balls into your face.

There IS a 6th person there, but flickering sprites...

The biggest issue here, is that it's got so much going on screen with so many large sprites, you end up missing most of them, or flickering as it's the game's way of showing which character has been selected (why not put a P1 or P2 over their head?) that you can quickly lose track of what's going on and the vanishing sprites through sprite overload, looks horrible and shows an over ambition here that failed to take into account the limitations of the NES. Maybe if it was just two characters on the court it might have avoided this issue.

Now it just needs Hollywood to make another bullshit film about it...

If you can look past the staggered frame rate and slightly unresponsive controls, you've a nice little game here that would otherwise be overlooked, but that said, there's better and more fun sports games out there than this on the NES with better graphics and controls. I could mention Double Dribble for a start by the synth-speech makes me laugh my balls off.  

Yep, now get lost and read something else.

Smash Hit

Yes it's free, no I didn't pay.

In a change of events, I thought I would take a look at Smash Hit. Oddly for me, it's a new game and was released recently upon the iPhone. As a medium I've yet from which to properly take a review. Released in the last few months, Smash Hit is one of those games that's proudly wearing the "experimental" tag on its game, which is to that it's a game with a gimmick that has been invented and then fashioned a game around that gimmick hoping to make a game, rather than make the game and building the engine into that game. In so far as to say, there's one thing you do here and that's it.
 

The further you go, the more devious yet intriguing the designs become

In what seems at first to be one of those tunnel flying games, where one would expect to navigate around obstacles and traps by turning or tilting the controller; you instead take the guise of travelling on a straight path through the Z axis while watching a rather surreal landscape pass you by. On your way you'll encounter various objects that for some reason have irked you enough that you can hurl large steel ball-bearings at them to break them and reward yourself with more balls. If you've ever been the kid that went they threw a rock through a green-house, wanted to throw more instead of running away, this game is for you. 

Hitting the edges and such won't help, the one point you need to worry about is in the dead centre

Each time you hit one of the crystals, you'll be rewarded with more balls, while the game will also throw at you various translucent obstacles made of glass that you'll have to hurl balls at in order to smash, obliterate and remove from your pathway otherwise you take a hit from the glass and spew out ten balls right there and then. Run out of balls and you run out of game and have to start over. If you manage to hit ten consecutive crystals without missing any of them, you get to fire more and more balls per shot at the cost of a sole ball to your collection, up to a maximum of five balls at a time in a large 'X' formation.

The whole game reeks of that pseudo-futuristic cleanliness, which does add to the atmosphere, admittedly

Like a lot of games on the iPhone, it's quick to pick up, quick to play and quick to learn. Which is essential given the fast and rapid flow of gaming these days on mobile devices where the gamers will want to be in the game, playing and out again before the next bus stop, or by the time they're called in for their usual VD clinic check-up. This game is of no exception to that situation and fulfils the requirement dutifully.

 

It's a shame I can't show this as a fluid animation, it's impressive to see

Graphically speaking, it's impressive to see in action. The movement remains fluid through out and glass in the game has that slightly refractive surface while being at the same time, translucent to seem like the panes of glass in bathrooms. The physics engine happily gives room for breaking parts of the glass and watching large chunks of it fall away as one might expect but don't get your hopes up for having breathtaking shatter effects. Chunks will disappears around where your ball hits and as long as you can get your view point through the obstacle, you won't really have to worry about much else.

 

Yes, I lost a combo just to take this shot, but the translucency was impressive

The difficulty ramps up suitable with the first few areas just an exercise in aiming the balls and gathering more by destroying crystals, before stationary glass obstacles begin to appear. Later levels have sliding glass, glass that flips up into position, glass swinging from ropes, glass hanging from ropes in suspension and will break and move depending upon where the tension gives up first, glass that rotates and spins and an assorted host of different shapes and structures to smash your way through.

 

Each zone has a doorway that has one or more buttons that require to be hit, good luck

Some parts of the game allow for a rapidfire item to be collected while gives you ten seconds to effectively "machinegun" your way through the game, spewing out ball after ball towards whereever you have your finger pressed down upon the screen. This doesn't make you invincible however and you can still crash into things, lose more balls, or miss crystals and lose your multiplier effect and becomes a little jarring the first time it happens and realise that the power-up isn't that much of a power-up.

 

It does get hard at times to judge what's going to actually hit you are be a near miss

The music jaunts along merrily enough in the background as an ambience to the game and doesn't really add much to the experience but then again it doesn't really subtract from it either. The glass breaking sound effects have just the right pitch and frequency to be satisfyingly close to what you're seeing and don't seem to be muted down or overblown in that regard.

 

Spinning glass, another problem is working out WHICH glass will hit you and making sure not to waste shots

Overall it's a fun little arcade style romp that's found a gimmick within an engine and put it to fairly good use. You'll likely play this a few times to see the effects and feel somewhat impressed by what your device is capable of doing and a fair few people will play it to see it through to the end or to score higher and higher against their friendslist. But without something new to challenge people, there's little replay factor beyond a week or so at most for the majority of players. Give it a go, you might be surprised.

Pang!

In case you didn't realise the title by now.

I have to admit to having a fondness for the 80s and 90s era of arcade gaming. Those who've ready read a lot of my blog/account/mindless-gibberish, will likely realise that I enjoy arcade gaming a lot and that I'm quite upset about its decline when the home console became an equal strength machine and then surpassed it. Leaving it just to be fruit machines, gimmick machines with guns/riding implements, coin-shovers and dancey dancey prancey trancey bollocks. However let's go back to 1990 and marvel at the wonder that is Pang!

Now that I've been to this location, am I assured to die in the near future?

The game is simple enough. You have your character running back and forth in his stereotypical hunting outfit (which suits for all locations from the top of Mt Fuji, to the frozen ice wastelands, to the Taj Mahal and beyond) and pop balloons. Apparently the world has been overrun with large bouncing ball/balloons and you (and possibly another berk) are armed with wire guns with points on the end and must hunting down and pop all the balloons.

Yes, your character is a prick.

Sounds simple and it is. Each balloon that is popped, will split into two smaller balloons until they're down to the smallest possible that bounces just high enough to sneak under at the apex of it's trajectory. These are removed from the game when popped. Larger balls can break into two and drop powerups ranging from double shot, trip wires, guns, shields, extra lives (rare, but true!) clocks to freeze the balloons and timers to increase the level limit.

Yep, still a prick.

Taking a single touch off the balloons while not shielded will end your life while your character takes a dive higher and faster and harder than any premiership footballer earning more in a week than the rest of us do in 5 years. Not only do you see the ultimate drama queen of amateur theatrics but you have to start the whole level over. Worse in 2 player as you BOTH stop if ONE gets killed by a balloon.

See the world and pop balloons. That's a lot of text to read in 10 seconds AND process it AND make an informed choice upon.

Aiding and hindering you, are the various creatures. Some will paralyse you, some will go so far as to pop balloons for you (usually right beside you to make the split-off land on you, some will just hit your wires and cause you to stop your shot and some... I've never realised what they do other than get really annoying. Perhaps that is the sole purpose of those creatures.

Trust me, it gets a lot harder, later on.

Musically there's some very upbeat tunes, the "hurry up" music isn't particularly overbearing and almost creeps into the game unlike say in Bubble Bobble where gameplay is stopped and a large klaxon goes off. The sounds are fairly solid with balloons popping with enough impact to make it feel like an accomplishment. The weapons firing have their own near-trademark recognition factor into them while the rest of the sounds are mildly muted pops squeaks and clomps. Nothing outstanding but at the same time nothing really below average either.

Some levels go for the platform approach and make it virtually impossible to avoid balloons unless you're quick.

It's nice to see some recognition has gone into the game for its locations and landmarks. Each level is 3 arenas at a specific landmark and at least the team responsible managed to make it look roughly like the landmark it's meant to represent. It's a purely graphical touch and has no impact on the gameplay but it's nice to see some effort went into it, despite the background having no actual bearing on the level or the layout of platforms and ladders.

It's just a balloon you fucking weakling!

As for a challenge, you can skip the first 18 or so levels at the start of a new game and go half way through the game from the off. A nice addition for those that already know the game and can bypass the easier levels, but the trade off is that you miss the chance to gain the points to give you lives to survive the later levels. However if you're that good in the first place, you shouldn't need the lives. Though later levels do become more difficult with blocks and platforms placed in such a manner as to make it more awkward to get past the bouncing targets and navigate towards things like the power ups and random foods that boost your scores.

New levels, new locations, new layouts, new challenges, same balloons.

There's a good challenge to this platform puzzler but once you've beaten it (if...) then you may not want to come back to it again. Some will, but that some won't be very many at all.