Ballistix
Reviewed by Inkhands
Ballistix is a fairly unique game. It's more akin to a
hockey game with some pinball elements in it than anything
else. Apparently you are playing in a new type of sport out
in outer space in a galaxy pretty far away. Not much is said
about the story other than that. The playing field is a
large flat box, much like a pinball box, and occasionally
there are some obstacles within the field. The game is fast
paced, but almost to the level that's it's not much fun. It
seems appealing at first, but then the appeal begins to wear
thin after only a few plays.
One of the things that hurts the game is the lack of modes.
You have a measly one player mode against the and a
two player mode for two players. There is also a one player
mode, with no opponent, in which you try for that ultimate
Holy Grail of video games - the legendary 'High Score'. To
better your attempts at the high score be sure to pick up
the letters on the field that spell out the word Ricochet.
This will give you an extra ten thousand points, but that's
all it will give. It would have been nicer if it gave
something like the new car in RC Pro Am when you spell out
Nintendo, but noooo all you get are bonus points.
The main objective of the game is to play in this large
boxed in field. Imagine at the top of the field and the
bottom there are empty spaces. These happen to be goals.
Your job is defend your goal, and manage to get this free
wheeling so called puck into your opponent's goal. The puck
in question looks more like a large marble, but I'll go
along with what it's supposed to be for the sake of humoring
the game. To knock this puck into your goal you use both
your player's body, the walls, and the obstacles within the
field. Some of these obstacles are just normal bumpers.
However, there is also a large belt thing that looks like a
rubber band stretched and attached over a couple of pegs.
There is also a pit and if the puck drops down into it, it
will appear out of the pit at the other end of the field.
To better your chances of knocking this puck where you
actually want it to go, you have a gun. This gun will fire a
limited number of bullets, which look like large gray balls.
This will knock the puck around quite well. If you run out
of bullets, then you can't shoot of course until you pick up
some more somewhere else. This is actually your best way of
controlling where that puck will go. The player is
usually very quick, so you have to be even quicker.
Scattered around the box will be extra ammunition, but also
there is an item that will appear occasionally. If you shoot
this item large brown balls that look like cereal will
explode out and knock the puck around for a while. To win
the game you have to score three times. However, you can
change it on the options screen for it to be more or less
than that. You can have it take anywhere from one through
five goals before you win a game. You can also select how
many games to play between one and ten. There are 100 stages
in this game and you select which one of them to play on in
the options screen. as well.
On the field you have arrows. They will face either up,
down, left, or right. This will send the puck into that
direction. You actually have a few options in this game that
will change how the game is played. Of course you have the
standard difficulty setting. You can make the
player easy, tame, or hard. However, you can also adjust the
speed of the ball to make it really slow, really fast, or in
between. This is done a scale of 1 to 10 though. The arrows
on the field that I mentioned above can be adjusted on a
scale of 1 to 10 as well. You can make them really powerful
or really weak. You also have on a scale of 1 to 10, how
much of a factor you want gravity to play in your game. You
can make it hardly there at all or you can make it really
come into play, which will change how your puck moves around.
Control isn't much of an issue in this game. You basically
just have to get lucky more than anything else. It's not a
game that really requires skill or thought. Just knock the
puck around and hope it goes into your goal and not your
opponent's . A bad thing is when you accidently knock the
puck into your own goal. Not exactly a good move, but it
happens to me a little too often. The challenge level is
adjustable, but either way this is not exactly a hard game.
The opponent is easy and besides I've already said
this is a game of luck more than anything else.
Yes, there are 100 levels in this game. One hundred levels
of dullness. The graphics are incredibly dull looking in
this game. You have a large alien looking guy that comes out
of the top of the screen and then moves away. Perhaps he's
the referee. A large alien hand will extend from the left
side of the screen at this point and drop the puck in front
of you. The view is overhead. The two players are supposed
to be robots I think, but they don't exactly resemble robots
very well. One is pink and the other is gray. You can at
least see the big guns they use, and they actually look a
lot like bazookas.
The balls are either gray or brown. The puck looks like a
large dark blue marble, as stated above. There is a flashing
light on it and the edge of it is light blue. It doesn't
have a flat look to it, but it moves around flat. I still
say it looks more like a marble than a puck. The actual
backgrounds are fairly poor looking. Sometimes you have gray
squares and sometimes pink. The obstacles don't add much to
the look of the game. Everything is in such boring and dull
gray colors. There is some green looking slime or acid. The
futuristic look of the game doesn't do much for the
graphics. Everything has too much of an apocalypse look to it.
The referee says something about letting the game begin, but
that's not the word he uses exactly. The music is very
boring. It's fast paced, but it sounds very cheap and fake.
I didn't like any of the sound in this game. The effects are
not very good either, because it's mostly just the sound of
your gun shooting over and over. You hear a little cling
noise when the puck bounces around. The audience will cheer
when someone scores a goal. Overall, poor music and even
duller sounding effects.
This game starts out looking very promising, but it goes
downhill from there. Mainly because of the lack of things to
do in this game. The hundred stages don't exactly add much
to the game, considering they are mostly variations of each
other. However, I haven't exactly played all hundred stages.
I have played enough of them to know that the game is very
repetitive, no matter what stage you are on. It could have
just as easily stayed on the same stage than to bother
placing so many levels in the game. The stages are simply
colored differently and the obstacles are changed around a
little. There just isn't much of a variety to this game. I
do admit it's fast paced and fun for a little while, but the
lack of challenge and fun put an overall dent in the appeal
of this game.
At first you might be thinking 'what the heck kind of game
is this' and then it will proceed to 'why the heck am I
playing this'. I admit the game is fairly original and
somewhat innovative, but it fails on a few levels. However,
I did have fun with this game for a little while. The
options give it a little replay value, because of all the
settings in terms of gravity, arrow power, and ball speed.
However, you want find much depth in the modes of the game.
It is supposed to be some sort of sports game and that could
explain the lack of depth. Overall, an interesting idea and
a flawed execution equals an average game that could have
probably been much better.
Graphics - 4/10
Sound - 3/10
Control - 6/10
Challenge - 5/10
Appeal - 4/10
Game Play - 5/10
Replay Value - 4/10
Overall: 5 out of 10
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