Sportsball Review

by Brandon Sultana

July 24, 2015

Wii U

 

I recently purchased the Humble Nindie bundle, where users could get a slew of indie games for a very cheap price. While I had bought it for the games I had heard about like Guacamelee, Gunman Clive, and SteamWorld Dig, there were many games included in the package I had never heard of. One of these games ended up being Sportsball, and it quickly became my favorite game out of the bunch.

 

 

Gameplay

The gameplay in Sportsball is very… unique. The main premise is that characters fly around on various different birds, trying to beat other players by attacking each other, and hitting balls littered around the field into the goal. It’s absolutely crazy, but the learning curve is incredibly small. With just two buttons and the analogue stick required to play, it’s very easy to pick up and play, which is important for a party game like this one. There are quite a few different modes that can be played, all of which have different rules that change things up a bit. Personally, the “Explosive Chaos” mode is by far the best, but the other ones are definitely worth checking out at the very least. Players can pick teams to play on, and even do co-op missions, although that isn’t nearly as entertaining as the carnage of a good free-for-all. All of the different birds also have different strengths and weaknesses, and experimenting with the cast of 16 avians is very fun. If there is one weakness in all of this, it’s the stages. While there are a good amount to choose some, a lot of them don’t lend themselves well to the craziness of the game, offering too little room to work with. Me and my friends found ourselves picking the same stages repeatedly, due to the large number of sub-par stages. The gameplay overall is a bit shallow, but it can provide a lot of entertainment with a good group of friends.

 

 

Charm

A huge part of the appeal in this game comes from the charm that the game has. It is very clear that the primary purpose of this game is to make people laugh. The menu has an extremely corny, and down-right terrible theme-song with lyrics that will bring chuckles from the players, and quickly get stuck in your head. The wide variety of birds are the stars of the show though, ranging from the tiny “Rhea”, the bad-ass “Cock-of-the-Rock”, and the humongous “Gigantaraptor”. All the birds have very silly animations and character portraits that really emphasis the games charming aspects. Silly stage names like “Neo New Hampshire” continue this trend . Even in game, the charm is very obvious. When scoring goals multiple goals at once, the game will give outlandish remarks depending on how much you got. It starts at a pretty standard “Double”, or “Triple”, but escalates to things like “Mega DumpTruck”, “You Literally put all the balls in the goal”, and “Since the game is over, let’s grab some pop after the match”. Yes, these are all real phrases, and sometimes things can get crazy, so it’s best to view these in the replay mode. There is even some in-depth lore in the digital manual for those who want to take things further. It’s an excellent package, that turns a game with pretty decent mechanics, into a laugh-fest.

 

 

Fun-Factor

Needless to say, this game is a blast with people. It doesn’t have the depth to be played in long sessions like Mario Kart of Smash Bros, but in short bursts, it rivals both of those games as some of the most fun on Wii U. Eventually, matches will divulge into whoever can pick Gigantaraptor first, since it’s pretty overpowered, but even with that, there is still tons of fun to be had. Unfortunately, the game’s single player is basically non-existent, consisting one mode where the player needs to score goals in to keep the timer at bay. I can see it be kind of fun, but it definitely won’t justify the games 10 dollar price tag for those who don’t play a lot of local multiplayer. However if you play games with lots of different people, then I think you can get plenty of mileage out of this game. There is also no online here, but I don’t really see it as a problem, as I believe this is a game that needs to be played with people around you, but it can definitely be a turn off for some. I firmly believe that this is one of the best party games on the system, but unfortunately there isn’t much to it, so it can potentially get old quickly.

 

 

Sum Up

Sportsball has all the perfect features of a great party game. It’s very easy to pick up, it is appealing to both laid-back, and competitive players, and the game is absolutely hilarious. So long as you have the people to play this game with, I highly recommend it. In the right circumstances, it can compete with the likes of Mario Kart and Smash Bros as highly entertaining Wii U party games.

 

Rating: Great/10

+ Very easy to pick up and play

+  Absolutely hilarious

+  Lots of modes and characters

- Underwhelming Stages

- Overall shallow gameplay