Switchball

"Marble Madness Made Mightily Marble Maddening"

I've always been a fan of puzzle-type games, especially if they have platformer elements mixed in (see: anything Klonoa). If they focus around rolling a morphing marble around through lifts and tubes in a highly manipulative environment, so much the better. Enter Switchball, an absolutely beautiful game where you must adapt to your environment to proceed.

The premise is simple: you begin the game as the marbleball (the default starter) with no great attributes or abilities. You proceed through each amazingly rendered 3D level one intricate puzzle at a time. Soon you're introduced to the metalball, which is larger and heavier than the default (but vulnerable to magnets), and able to push around metal crates (which are too heavy for the regular ball). Eventually you're able to change into an airball that can be inflated and float for a short duration, and is light enough to be able to roll across rope bridges. Then there's the powerball, which has its own set of chargers giving it three unique powers. The puzzles take great advantage of this, requiring you switch forms, and often. There is literally no way to get through the game by staying in one form, so there is no "best ball."

Between each individual puzzle is a gate, letting you continue if you fall off the world, get popped as the airball or sucked into a magnet as the metalball. There's no limited lives here, so you can take as many attempts as you want to get through a section, and rest assured, with some you may require a few tries. The puzzles are at times simple, at times intricate, although often straightforward. You're always given the tools to complete a particular challenge, so if you see a morph station to change into the metalball, rest assured there's some metal crates that need to be shoved around, or a tall stack of wooden crates that can't be budged by the regular marbleball or airball. The game uses the PhysX engine, so each of these balls has their own feel, their own "weight."

Once the powerball is introduced, the game takes a turn toward puzzle platforming. The powerball has three of its own charge stations, granting it different abilities: first, the power to jump at will (yes, you will be climbing stairs and leaping bottomless pits), the power to do a superpowered charge (bust through crate stacks, dash up steep hills, etc.) and become magnetized at will. Like the changing stations for the other balls, these powers are used to maximum creativity.

The game can be controlled by either moving your mouse to move the ball, or keyboard controls. Let me just say that keyboard controls are a lot easier. Using the mouse, you tend to have to keep moving in one direction to maintain speed, which can be annoying. Using the keyboard, you stay at max speed in whatever direction you're moving, but it's a lot easier to hit the reverse and stop on a dime. Seeing as you don't really have to move too precisely outside the eight diagonal directions, using the keyboard is easiest.

As I've said (repeatedly) the game is gorgeous. If your system is good enough to play it at full settings, it's just incredible. Oftentimes I found myself stopping just to glance around with the camera, look at the puzzle in full. Said camera can be adjusted to be freelook, stay behind your ball, or just let the game handle it. The latter is quite good and, since all the puzzles are open-world environments, there's no close quarters to get hung up on, letting the game show you the action with the most dramatic angles possible.

Likewise, the music is great, though a tad repetitive. Most levels can be completed in 5-10 minutes, but if you're not quite that quick (either with your platforming or puzzle skills) they can last for up to 20 minutes or more. Each world (of which there are five, with six stages each) uses its own unique song, so you end up listening to the same thing for six stages in a row.

Though the worlds themselves are apparently different in theme, the only true difference between them is the background and the difficulty of the puzzles (later worlds have tougher puzzles, etc.) Not that this is a bad thing, but just don't expect the cave world to have bats flying around waiting to pick up your ball and drop it into oblivion. Actually, that's a good thing.

Frankly, the biggest hit against Switchball is that the later levels can be downright frustrating. The whole PhysX engine thing is impressive, yes, and the physics in the various levels are handled really well. However, there are a few places where it feels more like you're fighting the physics than the puzzles. The last stage in the cave world, for example, has a puzzle requiring you to push metal crates from which magnetic devices are hanging from in such a way that they line up, allowing you to use the powerball's magnetic function to do an upside-down "leap" across to the other side. The problem with this is the magnetic aspect of the physics engine can and will cause you to drop just outside the magnetic range, sending you plunging to your doom, thus forcing you to spend another 2-3 minutes setting up the magnets again. This isn't really something you have a great amount of control over, such as hopping around platforms or rolling through a narrow set of rails. You have to roll up to the magnets, activate the powerball's magnetic power and hope and pray that you don't slip and fall before you reach the other side.

There are other levels where you can spend a great amount of time setting up a puzzle solution properly, then end up slipping off the course and having to start over. Fortunately, these are the great minority, and, though outrageously frustrating, don't detract too far from the rest of the game.

Overall, you can expect to be putting in maybe a dozen hours going through the game the first time, and a whole lot more if you want to get the game's medals. Though at the beginning you're given the option of timed or free play, the only difference between the two is whether or not the level timer is shown. You still earn medals whether you can see the timer or not (but obviously it's easier getting medals requiring a low completion time if you actually know how long it's taking you). Every level has bronze, silver and gold medals to award based on your time, and the hardest overall medal has to be the one demanding you get the gold in every level of the game. Considering the complexity of the puzzles and sheer size of some of the later levels, you could be at it a while.

Given all this, and the fact that it's only $20 for the full version, Switchball is certainly worth your time, and the spare change you're able to scrounge out of the couch. See you on the rails!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/03/07