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Go Mecha Ball, out today on Steam and Game Pass, is a swish blend of twin-stick shooting and pinball physicsOnce again pondering the orb
Once again pondering the orb
Image credit:Super Rare Originals
Image credit:Super Rare Originals
Friends, it is finally time for me to discourse unto you about my great love of balls. The roots of my enthusiasm go back to pinball machines - both the fancier, arcade variety that transmogrify into e.g. screaming robot skulls when you achieve a high-enough multiplier, and the crappy, play-at-home variety that are basically a canted wooden sheet with some numbers drawn on it. But it wasn’t till I embraced the holy medium of videogames that I realised the full potential of balldom.
Go Mecha Ball - Release Date AnnouncementWatch on YouTube
Go Mecha Ball - Release Date Announcement
Out today onSteamand Game Pass from Whale Peak Games and Super Rare Originals, it mixes pinball physics with twin stick shooting on colourful, isometric-style levels full of ramps, chutes, tunnels and bouncepads. If you are similarly carried away, and you’re not on Game Pass, you might want to try the Steam demo in the few hours remaining before release - developers often remove them after launch (update: it appears they’ve literally just pulled the demo as I was writing this).
This might sound A Bit Much, if you’re just in it for the physics, but the game’s art, sound and animations do a lovely job of bringing it all together into something that feels both immediate and complex. The game’s four worlds also remind me heavily of the old isometric or isometricky platformers I used to enjoy on Sega Saturn, likeSonic 3D Blast, and descendants of those games, likeLumo. Generally speaking, the isometric perspective doesn’t get enough love. There’s something irresistible about the way it slashes the landscape into diagonal shades and textures.
If you’re a fellow ball enthusiast who never outgrew their love of pinball, you might prefer to try out some pinball videogames.Demon’s Tiltisespecially good. I’m also told that balls feature in several varieties of real-world sport, some of which have even been turned into videogames, but that sounds like absolute madness to me.
