Wreckin’ Ball Adventure

Genre: Platformer

Players: 1-4 Co-Op (Local)

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Review:

Wreckin’ Ball Adventure is a physics-based Platformer where you’re guiding a robotic ball through a factory or research facility (it’s not entirely clear what the point of the facility is, but they apparently like torturing robotic balls). There are puzzle elements where you need to find and hit switches to open pathways, or break open secret walls to get to places, and while you can quickly head to a level’s exit, you’re encouraged to explore to find all the hidden bonuses to progress.

Visually, the game has a clean look that’s not bad, but nothing impressive. It is, however, pretty repetitive, and before long you’ll be wishing the game had more variety in its scenery. The music is nice, and a little too much on the “soothing” side for the pacing of the gameplay that’s on offer here.

As for the gameplay, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, early on you get a grappling hook move that is a blast to use, swinging around the place at high speeds, trying to adjust your length to get juuuust the right arc in the air to get where you want to go.

On the other hand, movement on the ground just feels all sorts of wrong – your character has too much bounce, too much momentum, and as soon as you touch anything other than flat ground, your character reacts to it in ways that are hard to predict. For all the fun that swinging in the game is, the moment you have to interact directly with the wall or the ground, it feels like a roll of the dice trying to get your character to move how you want.

That’s a damn shame, especially in a physics-heavy Platformer, because that’s where precision control is absolutely vital, but far too often I felt like I wasn’t in control at all.

In the end, Wreckin’ Ball Adventure has some moments that are really a blast, but those moments are brought down by the moments of frustration and the monotonous visuals. I wish the developer spent more time working on this, because it had so much more potential than what we got.

tl;dr – Wreckin’ Ball Adventure is a physics-based Platformer where you’re guiding a robotic ball through a facility, rolling, bouncing, and swinging your way through areas in search of secrets. The swinging is a blast, but the rolling and bouncing is frustrating and difficult to control, and the visuals feel monotonous. This one had potential, but dropped the… er, ball.

Grade: C+

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