Genesis

Ballz 3D: Fighting at its Ballziest

For a quite different and truly sublime fighting experience, try the new game BALLZ (Accolade, for Genesis, $59.95), in which the combatants are composed of elastic, spherical globules. Paradoxically, Ballz's faceless fighters (including a sumo wrestler, a clown, and a ballerina) are endowed with more personality than any of the brutes in MK II or Warrior-and this game's 3-D scaling effects and hip soundtrack make the competition look like a kindergarten hair-pulling match.

Ballz takes the increasingly routine genre of fighting games and gives it new bounce, injecting a wicked sense of humor into the action. The screen in the background flashes some of the best put-downs ever seen in a game.

Ballz is the closest thing to Virtua Fighter on any home system...but even though that's a compliment, it still doesn't do justice to this game's supremely eccentric personality. Give it a chance, won't you?

With all its brashness and attitude, Ballz comes on strong, but after a few plays the originality soon dries up and the marshmallow characters start to wear thing. If you're a little deranged or if you just want to cop an attitude and release some tension, drop a sixty spot, get some Ballz and become King of the Rude Marshmallow Men.

Ballz has a unique perspective on the fighting field (like Virtua Fighter), but I found some of the moves difficult to pull off at times. The fighters were interesting, with their various taunts and other poses and the whole idea is innovative, but in the end it just never really came together for me. It is an interesting variation on the fighting theme, though.

So, here we are. Ballz is a game that many just don't play because it's seen as SO bad. Well, I'm not going to lie; it is hard to really get into, but this brings back the point I made in the beginning. Who am I to say that this game was really a waste of time? I know nothing of how it was made, or how much time and effort was put in. It's hard for me to stick a number on this. Ah... the hell with it. THIS GAME IS UTTER TOSH! Ignore Ballz at all costs! If there's an awesome bundle on eBay with ten games you always wanted, and the dealer is will send you Ballz for free just for buying? Report him!

I can't remember the last time I lost interest in a game so quickly. It doesn't help that Ballz conveys an irreverent attitude that borders on crude. The box even boasts about how you can fart on your opponents. Pretty classy, huh? The fighting "arena" is surrounded by television screens that flash idiotic wisecracks like "Ballzai!" and "Lick the mat chump!" The game's atrocious "music" (if you can call it that) is composed of a hodgepodge of grating digitized samples. Needless to say, it's so execrably bad that it alone could justify the F grade. Like so many other games that attempt to be edgy and funny, Ballz comes off as completely tasteless and obnoxious.