Roll-o-rama
This game was one of the most addictive games on the show. When I first picked up the GBA and took a look at the screen, the helper looked at me straight in the eyes and said "sleeper hit of the show", to which I laughed at. Im not laughing anymore.
You know how games like Super Monkey Ball may not have a quest but have very addictive gameplay? Well thats exactly what Roll-o-rama accomplishes with spades. If any of you had the pleasure of playing with the old toy "labyrinth", where you need to roll a metallic marble to the end while dodging holes, then you have a good clue of how to play Roll-o-rama. Essentially what you have to do is navigate your ball to the end while dodging all sorts of pitfalls and riding on platforms. You simply tilt the cartridge in the way you want the marble to roll, and the platform tilts the same way. For this reason, you should be able to pick the game up in 1.2 milliseconds and have a perfect feel for the controls.
The game sounds pretty simple doesnt it? Well thats because it actually is. Everything in the game looks to be designed around simplicity. No high polygon models or flashy backgrounds. Just straight out solid gameplay, and boy does it ever deliver. Some of the game is designed as a horizontal layout where you need to avoid falling in pits, while other parts completely rely on vertical climbing. For some reason, it just all comes together to give you a simple, yet rewarding challenge.
On one level I played you begin with roughly 8 balls whereby you need to try and get as many as possible to the end. It sounds so easy but ends up being the challenge of a lifetime. When you tilt the world, all these balls move around perfectly, but you have to think of ways to get them all through tight areas like revolving platforms and side-less corridors. There were parts where you need to hit a number of switches with your balls and then the platform you are on would open up and all the balls would drop down to a lower level. This kind of variation in the levels kept the action interesting and surprisingly addictive.
At the beginning there was even a briefcase of different balls to choose from. Every ball looks to have different stats and looks. Although I wasnt able to get the stats down, Im pretty sure I saw things like acceleration and speed. Not only that, but there were lots of balls to choose from too. So at the very least if we cant have Kirby then we can have varying levels of ball performance.
One of the big features of the game was this GBA interactivity. If you ball does indeed fall off then you have a chance to redeem yourself by "catching it below" with your GBA. Once the ball falls down you need to quickly look down to your GBA where the action is about to take place. Here you see a pointer go back and forth, which indicates where the ball is about to fall to. You need to tilt the GBA to get your catcher underneath that arrow and catch the falling ball. Once you have caught the ball, you look back up to the television and tilt the GBA to slightly move the world around so you can find a suitable throwing position. Once you have found a good spot, you press A to launch the ball back up to the playing world and continue with the level. I have created a mock-up of what it looked like when you played the game. The green spots are the jumper pods that boost you up to a higher platform if you aim it right. At times there are spots where your ball will go into a hole, whereby you play "down below" on your GBA for a little bit. It works just like the GameCube version save for the crummy graphics and slightly more difficult perception of angle. Once you complete that area you are launched back up to the television screen so you may continue play. This sort of thing seemed a little bit more like a gimmick but was still a great deal of fun.
Really this game is so easy to describe because the game is so simple in premise and even gameplay. The question is: can they keep it fresh enough to last levels in the double-digits? Well find out later this year, but at least now you can say you have a better idea of how it plays.
Jason Nuyens