Man, I miss the 80's. And not just for things like big hair and Molly Ringwald. There were some great toys when I was growing up, especially the gross-out ones like Slime and the Garbage Pail Kids.
Probably the most memorable of all these disgusting diversions were Madballs, a series of grotesque rubber balls put out by AmToy with names like Screamin Meemie, Slobulus and Oculus Orbus. These things smelled bad and with their googly eyes and slavering mouths, looked worse but we kids loved 'em.
Good news for nostalgic Madballs fans everywhere; developer Playbrains is bringing an arena-based 3D shooter to Xbox LIVE Arcade based on the Madballs characters! I was given a preview of Madballs in Babo: Invasion at E3 this year by Playbrains President and CEO, Scott Simpson and from what I saw, Madballs is all about the numbers. As in:
- 10 character classes to choose from (each with 2 special abilities)
- 5 Archetypes: Assault, Heavy, Runner, Flyer and Support.
- 2 warring factions battling it out, each with 5 unique weapons with 2 firing modes.
- 4 damage types: heat/cold and energy/impact
- 10 single player levels
- 3 worlds: ice, jungle and space station
- 50 unlocks and 50 Secrets to find during campaign gameplay
Whew. That's a lot to take in but what Playbrains really wants to convey about the game is that it's a high-energy shooter that's intuitive enough for casual gamers and strategic enough for the hardcore. In addition to single player campaign, the game features a range of multi-player options. For you co-operative types, there's 2-4 co-op campaign mode and for those of you who don't play well with others, an online 16-player team versus mode.
Madballs in Babo: Invasion offers 21 of the usual multi-player map types—Skirmish, Capture the Flag, Death Match, etc—but the most interesting aspect of multi-player is Invasion Mode. In this signature mode, players choose from 150 tiles and place turrets and healing towers to create their own unique maps.
On top of this, in an XBLA first, players can compete against each other using their Xbox LIVE avatars in Avatar Attack mode. I saw this in action and it's pretty hilarious.
Your avatar enters the (unofficially named) “decappuccino machine” where its head is separated from its body and then the disembodied head functions in game like a Madball. In one of the most ridiculously fun touches, when your avatar is hit, it spews confetti like some kind of scary pinata.
Madballs in Babo: Invasion will have plenty of multi-player support, including rankings and leaderboards and according to Playbrains, gamers can look forward to lots of upcoming DLC like character skins, weapons, maps and additional modes. Look for it this summer on XBLA and Steam.
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