Switchball Review

Well its Wednesday, so its time for another XBLA game review! This time around I’ll be sharing all there is to share about Switchball with you. If you ever played Marble Madness in the old 8/16 bit days of yore, then you will be familiar of the concept of Switchball. Consider it Marble Madness v6. I say version 6.0 because its that much above and ahead of the game. At the core basis it is simply a puzzle game, you navigate a marble across a puzzle of suspended walkways and bridges high above floating in the sky. The concept, as you can see, is basic. The controls are simple, left analog moves the marble, right analog the camera, and A is the action button for the occasional and rare need of it. Toss in a concept multiplier of multiple ball types, like Marble, Metal, and Air (each having the expected affects on the real-world physics) then environment features, such as surfaces that wont support the weight of some marbles, fans that blow and move the air, and magnets that will stop your metal version, and you are left with an incredibly basic and simple puzzle premise that allows for an unfathomable array of depth. Screwing up and rolling off into the depths of oblivion are never all that bad, as periodically you roll though these stargate looking (I kid you not!) devices that act like checkpoints.

At first it felt like the game might get old after a while, as I played it in free mode, however after I took a break after what seemed like forever and a day of levels I realized that I had only traversed between 1/5 and 1/4 of the way into the game. There is a TON of replay value, as well as an added value of co-op and versus modes, requiring team work and time-based racing to beat the maps, respectively.

Graphics and sound wise, its on par with what you would expect, and want, from a decent quality arcade game. The graphics are awesome, with some nice effect for the various object surfaces, like the cloth sheets you roll over (and through), metal railings, etc. The music is a nice ambient sound that is rather mellow and well suited for a game that’s al

l about thinking your way through it and relaxing. Although one of the modes is a time attack mode, even then, you never feel the rushed pressure of “gaming”, just a calm puzzle games with hours of fun. (I’m using it right now to break up the labourous monotony of Assassins Creed, heh)

So at the end of the day, if you have 800 points to spend, (or money to BUY 800 points) get Switchball, you wont be disappointed in the least. I’ll stake my reputation on it!