Combat revolved! In Madballs in … Babo: Invasion, campaign across distant worlds either solo or with four-player online co-op, taking no prisoners in your wake. Challenge your friends (and your enemies) to see who's the baddest ball on the planet in no-holds-barred 16-player multiplayer arenas with freaky characters or with your own Xbox 360® Avatar! Or really push your limits and try your hand at Invasion Mode where combatants create the very worlds where they wage war. Dozens of unique character classes, weapons, special abilities, worlds, unlocks, secrets, maps, and game modes give you limitless gameplay!

* Avatar ready: Play as your own Xbox 360 Avatar.
* Multiple game modes: Take on the campaign, a ten-level epic quest to save the galaxy. Play multiplayer with up to 16 players, or try four-player online co-op throughout the campaign. And try Invasion Mode, where teams strategically square off to build their side of a never-before-seen map. Once the map is designed, it is rendered in real-time and the combatants meet on it to battle for supremacy!
* Versus arenas: Play on 21 multiplayer maps, with five combat modes: Skirmish, Team Skirmish, Capture The Flag, Invasion, and Avatar Attack.
* The Madballs: Play as your favorite childhood toys, with 10 character classes each with their own unique special abilities, and 10 powerful weapons, each with two fire modes.

Click to expand...

Did we say 1200 points? You’ve got a cute face, let’s make it…800 points

Good news for budget-conscious gamers and those with stereotypical Scottish ancestry: we’re not going to be 1200 points after all.

We just got off the phone with Microsoft Game Studios and they have consulted the oracle, had their epiphany and they have decided that we should indeed go out into the world at 800 points. Despite having features unseen in other 1200 point games (and even some retail games), we’re a multiplayer-centric title, so the more people that play, the more fun the game will be for everyone.

So all that means is that you can now spend that extra $5 on the Dr. Scholl’s…we’re dropping at 800 points in…8 hours or so!

Click to expand...

Enk said:

Next they should bring back Glow Worms or My Pet Monster!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFBdmy0bXgE

Click to expand...

Jube3 said:

Wow awesome, 800. I wasnt planning on it but definitely interested in checking it out. Does the avatar support mean I play as my own rolling head? If so IM SO THERE:lol :lol

Click to expand...

Enk said:

Next they should bring back Glow Worms or My Pet Monster!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFBdmy0bXgE

Click to expand...

RBH said:

Good that Microsoft came to their senses for a change and corrected the price.

Click to expand...

Q. Talk to us about the multiplayer features of the game
It's easiest to break down multiplayer into Coop, Avatar and PVP modes.

* Coop has been covered above. It's worth mentioning that the game difficulty scales based on the number of players connected - so you will encounter the toughest enemies by choosing to play 4 player coop on Hard. To me this mode feels a lot like an arcade version of Resistance 2 Coop mode (from the Playstation 3), and it is just inherently fun playing with allies and chewing through tons of enemies and making progress, so I think players will replay this mode a lot.

* Avatar modes let you play in a free-for-all as your XBox Live Avatar head. What we are finding playing this mode is that players really take advantage of the personalization options for XBox Live Avatars, and you see some really funny or surprising heads in the game. One of our testers has configured himself to look like a geisha princess Leia head with red warpaint. Another guy has made his head look like a big white skull with spikes on his scalp. It's really fun to see players express themselves creatively by putting head parts together that you would never expect. In terms of gameplay details, we wanted to embellish the mode with some design to keep it from being too vanilla. What we added was that players have the ability to do jetpack jumping, and as you earn kills in this mode your head will grow up to 300% larger - so you make more of an impression on others and become a bigger target. It's a great mode to blow off steam and laugh at other player's Avatars.

PVP modes - theres quite a few to go through. We support 16 player matches and have 21 hand-crafted maps. The modes are Skirmish, Team Skirmish, Capture the Flag, and the game's namesake: Invasion game mode.

* Skirmish mode is a score-based free for all. To keep the mode original, we have multipliers dropping off enemies you take out - collecting them boosts your scoring ability as long as you survive, so there is a real incentive to prolong your lifetime and collect those. Protip: Close range weapons are really good for this mode. Players can mix and match gear from either faction in this mode as well.

* Team Skirmish mode was a favorite of the prequel (Babo Violent 2) and we really see the class synergies working well in this mode. Multiplier collection is also in effect but the multipliers dropped by a player can only be collected by the enemy team. There is also a MVB "Most Valuable Ball" on each team whom drops additional multipliers when taken out.

* Capture the Flag is that familiar set of game rules that's just easy to play over and over. Area-denial special abilities like the Jenkins' Nuke and Aceu's acid barf play off brilliantly against breach classes like Magmor and the Flyer's ability to bypass walls. This mode is about flag captures, so there's no multipliers to collect.

* Invasion mode is an original design we are really proud of. It's a really interesting combination of Domination and Defend & Destroy gameplay on a map that is never the same way twice. Players on each team build a map by placing tiles much like in the excellent XBLA game Carcassone. Then each side votes for the location of their base and control points. The system then builds the map in real-time and players start battling on their new map. I don't think I have seen any other game do this so I think it's really innovative. If you steal the other team's control points, it exposes their Base to damage by taking down it's shields. Players can also reinforce control points with rocket towers or healing stations which makes them much harder to convert. As far as map layout strategies, it's been interesting. Some players prefer to bury the control points at the back of their territory which puts the base on the front lines for an early team rush. I think we will see some emergent strategies evolve in map building and base placement as the community grows.

Another multiplayer feature that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere is the Prestige Ranks. As you unlock characters and gear you earn ranks. These ranks are displayed next to player names in the Lobby for the game and in the Summary and Ingame scoresheets. At certain points you can trade in your current prestige rank and all your unlocks to earn prestige at a new tier. There are five ranks per tier and these go through bronze, silver and gold levels. So if you see a Gold rank player at the top of the scoresheet, you will know he has played through the game a ton.

Click to expand...

AstroLad said:

haha madballs

Click to expand...

mujun said:

This has to be a result of moneyhatting.

M$ never make shit cheaper when they can make it more expensive.

Click to expand...

mujun said:

This has to be a result of moneyhatting.

M$ never make shit cheaper when they can make it more expensive.

Click to expand...

Nelo Ice said:

demo is up
http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/games/media/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d802584109c8/

Click to expand...

Bamelin said:

As I mentioned in the XBLA thread, I've actually played the full game. One of the devs is based here in Toronto, I had the opportunity to play the full game on Monday night. It's shit hot, at 800 pts it's now a ridiculously good deal. Hardcore competitive fraggers are going to love this, particularly with the varied classes and multiple weaponry combined with in depth stats tracking.

Click to expand...

CoLaN said:

I sold my 360 months ago; i think i'll buy one again just for this game - i'm not joking.

Any word on a PC version? I did read an article were they was talking about it, but can't find anything else.

Click to expand...

I played the boot camp and a couple of matches of multiplayer this morning. People seem to all be playing Avatar mode the most. So, that's what I was playing, we had about 14 players in the game and it run silky smooth.

It's fun so far, I like some of the balancing things I saw. Don't quote me on this, but I think it has a multiplier like the single player, and the higher your multiplier the bigger your head, making you easier to hit. At least something was making players bigger.

I didn't get the weapon strength/weakness thing at all in multiplayer, but in the boot camp it seemed fairly straightforward. Maybe it'll be more obvious when people are playing with their balls as opposed to their heads.

Sadly, I couldn't play more because I had to head to work, but I'm looking forward to playing the campaign in coop with friends tonight.

Click to expand...

xbhaskarx said:

So did anyone else buy this?
I definitely think it's worth $10, everyone should at least try the demo.

One complaint: I can't use certain weapons in the multiplayer until I unlock them in the single player campaign?

Click to expand...

mujun said:

Actually I have one other gripe, something I'm sure could be patched (but won't be). I don't really like the two camera angles that are available. I want the starting one but zoomed out a decent amount more.

Click to expand...