Spaceball: Revolution is a sci-fi-themed puzzle game released for WiiWare. Players use their Wii Remote to aim at a grid and fire spaceballs to light up the squares within it. On the upper-left corner of the screen, you will see another grid with lit squares that make up a shape you must match while avoiding obstacles that block the path of your flying balls. There is a timer running while you are trying to complete the shapes, so think fast.
Between rounds, you are put in an intergalactic shooting range in which you fire your balls at futuristic clay pigeon-ish things that fly by really fast as your spaceballs inch along towards them, so timing your shot is important here. This minigame serves as a nice way of changing up the action in Spaceball: Revolution, but it’s not enough to keep me sitting for long.
Don’t get me wrong; the game is fun. The problem is it has too little to keep me entertained for more than 30-minutes at a time: Shoot balls frantically at a grid trying to match shapes, shoot around floating boxes and other intrusive obstacles to bounce balls off walls, play in a space age shooting range then do it again.
I could see this working much better as an iPhone app in the $5 range. The touch screen and accelerometers would work great with this style of gameplay. Spaceball: Revolution very nicely lends itself to the mobile platform with its quick-to-the-action gameplay and simple bouncing balls off of walls physics. The game almost begs players to sit and play for short periods of time, such as on the bus ride home or in the theater while waiting for the movie to start.
Is $8 a bad price for a game like Spaceball: Revolution? No. Is putting the game on a console rather than a mobile device such as the iPhone or iPod Touch limiting its appeal? I think so.
GamePro Score: 3.5
Pros: Great concept, decent gameplay.
Cons: Gets old after extented periods of time, would serve best as a mobile game.
The Info – Platform: WiiWare, Publisher: Virtual Toys, Players: 1-2 ESRB: E, Price: 800 Wii Points ($8)
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