Faceball 2000

"Worth it even if you just want to look at it."

I actually remember playing this game on my Super Nintendo way back when, I didn't even know that there was one for the GB. Well fast forward to 2001, I saw my friend playing this game on his Gameboy Color, and I couldn't believe it! a first person shooter on the Gameboy? it couldn't be possible could it? how would it play? it would probably look really horrible wouldn't it? How would it compare to the SNES version? Well, I bought the game from my friend for 5 bucks, and after playing it for a long time, I decided that it was worth it, if only for the novelty of it.

Gameplay:

So you might be wondering right? The Gameboy is a weak little system, how could it manage this? Pretty well actually. There are 2 modes of play: Cyberspace and Arena. The first you'll get bored with pretty quick. This is the one player mode where you go through mazes eliminating the faces along the way and exiting the level. It's fun at first, but in later levels the framerate takes huge drops and you're left with really slow moving faces and that's not cool. There are also over 60 levels, I think, but there's no way to save! none AT ALL! and believe me, the later levels get really hard so a password save would make cyberspace more worthwhile. But as it stands, it sucks. Now arena is where the fun is. If you've ever played Deathmatch in ANY multiplayer first person shooter, you'll feel right at home in this. All this is is your character and other faces pitted against each other in a map, but it's SO fun. There are 4 types of faces you can choose to go against, or be. They are: circle, pacman ghost looking face, a can shaped face, and an upside down pacman ghost face. There is no difference between the faces when you decide to play as one of them, but there are differences in the faces when you go AGAINST THEM. For example, A round face in Arena and Cyberspace is different from a pacman ghost face, because the ghost is kamikaze, so instead of running away from you, it actually tries to tough you. There are other things, but I want you to play the game to discover the different attributes of the faces. The controls in this game are simple but effective:

D-Pad= move (duh)
A= Opens hint balls
B= Fires
Select= Bring up map
Start= Pause

My only complaint is that there's a lack of a strafe button. The A button is pretty useless in this game so they could've used that, but then again, there's not much room for strafing since you're running around in labyrinth type levels so this is a moot point.

Overall 8/10

Story

As far as I can remember, the story went as followed: You are in a new VR game and uh...that's it!

Overall 1/10

Graphics

Well beyond the fact that the graphics are 3D and that it has REAL polygons, the graphics are basic. The walls are just simple squares, no ceiling textures, a checkered floor texture, and that's it. The distance you can see is very bad too. You can only see a couple feet ahead of you and the rest looks like static and this can get pretty annoying because you won't be able to see some baddies, but they'll be shooting you just fine. Another thing is that when there's about 3 enemies on screen at a time, the framerate will really take a plunge. This is not as bad in Arena, but in Cyberscape, it's a big problem. Of course, though, when you consider what platform the game is on, it all seems really good. Just don't expect jaw-dropping visuals. A cool thing, though, is that if you play it on your GBC or GBA, you can change the color palette. My favorite is the yellow palette.

Overall: 7

Sound/Music

The game is not very good in this department. There are only 2 tunes to speak of: one song that plays in every level, and a song that plays when you finish a level or win a deathmatch. They're catchy tunes though, I'll give them that, but don't be surprised if you find yourself pulling your hair out over the music later. There also aren't many sound effects to speak of either, and what little there are, are just a bunch of bleeps and bloops. But hey! what can you really expect from the GBC? not much.

Overall: 4

Replay Value

You'll probably keep on coming back to blast some faces in Arena, but you'll get bored of it eventually (like every other game),

Overall: 7

Should I buy?

Well I think if you can find this at a pawnshop or something for around 5 bucks, then you should definitely go for it. Just don't come expecting a Duke Nukem Advance or something.

Final Score: 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/24/02, Updated 11/24/02