Watching the perfectly arranged set pieces splinter off into smaller chunks by the force of your ever-moving soccer ball is one of the biggest draws of the game. Regardless, having such a wealth of available pick-ups keeps things interesting, even if a couple are largely detrimental to your success. Meteors and lightning bolts offer a bit of destructive help, while wind gusts and hammer-induced earthquakes are more amusing to watch than actually beneficial in completing a stage. Downed objects on the screen will occasionally spout out collectables that can outfit your bow-shaped paddle with a firearm (machine gun, cannon, laser, etc.), increase or decrease the size of the paddle, let you hold any ball that comes back your way or change the style of the ball (into the schizophrenic crazy ball or unstoppable iron ball, among others). Despite the atypical board design, similar strategies prevail, like getting the ball between the top of the board and its contents, allowing you to sit back and watch each successive bounce remove even more of the puzzle.įollowing in the footsteps of Arkanoid and other brick-busters that utilize power-ups, Magic Ball features a wide array of weapons, special attacks and modifiers that will – in most cases – help you clear the screen more quickly. Rather, the expected corners on each end of the board are replaced by diagonal walls that may deflect the ball in a different direction depending on the angle of the shot. The game employs an isometric perspective that depicts the entire game board, which, unlike most 2-D genre entries, is not entirely rectangular in shape. As if the concept of launching a ball at hovering bricks wasn’t silly enough, now you’re firing soccer balls at giant sharks that float along in formation.Īside from the obvious aesthetic shift, Magic Ball plays very similarly to its spiritual predecessors. Instead, Magic Ball presents colorful 3-D arrangements filled with the likes of pirate ships, castles, medieval knights and towers comprised of oversized playing cards. While not the first game to attempt this style of game with a 3-D interface (genre originator Breakout had an ill-received PSOne/PC iteration), it may very well be the first to completely do away with the established template of knocking out various types of bricks or blocks at fixed positions. Magic Ball tries to take the basic premise of such titles and bring it into the modern era. But the allure of individually dislodging pieces from a carefully constructed design with a paddle and a ball has endured through the years via games like Arkanoid, Alleyway and some generic knock-off I downloaded to my high school graphing calculator a decade ago. The Cuboid and Mahjong Tales: Ancient Wisdom Booster Packs will be released in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for those exciting and highly anticipated releases as well.I’ve long held a fascination with the premise of bouncing balls against inexplicably floating brick walls, though only in video games – all the bricks I find in real life are frustratingly bound by gravity, and besides, vandalism’s really not my thing. Highly-requested mouse support will also be made available via a free patch download.įirst up will be the Magic Ball Booster Pack, scheduled for release this Thursday, April 16. Also included is a series of new trophies, obtainable by only the most dedicated Mahjong players. Players can then save any new customized level that they have created or played via online multiplayer invitation to their HDD. * The Mahjong Tales: Ancient Wisdom Booster Pack features 25 all new layouts to beat in Infinity mode, as well as a level editor that allows players to create their own layouts from scratch and share their creations with other gamers by hosting an online multiplayer game on their custom-created level. Custom music support for Cuboid is also on its way via a free patch download. The Cuboid Bundle Pack includes both the Booster Pack (33 new levels) and the Level Editor. Players can also earn trophies for creating their own levels, and for rating the levels created by others. User-created levels can be uploaded to the PSN where they will be made available to other players (who have downloaded the free patch). Players can either create a brand new level from scratch, or improve upon any existing level, created by other players or taken from the original campaigns. The Cuboid Level Editor allows players to become level designers and challenge others with their own custom levels. The Cuboid Booster Pack contains 33 new levels that will test even the best players’ skills, rewarding gamers with new trophies. * Cuboid, a mind-bending 3D puzzle game, will offer gamers three different options for add-on content.
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