Home News Forum                            
 

On the Ball - Nintendo SNES

Publisher:Taito Corporation  ?              No-Intro:On the Ball
Developer:Taito Corporation  ?              GoodName:On the Ball
Year:1992              TOSEC:N/A
Category:Racing              MAME:N/A
Game Manual:Download              Game Music:
Download

Play your favorite classic games and more with the GameEx front end. Read more.

Also on: Commodore Amiga, Microsoft DOS

 


Video
In game image of On the Ball on the Nintendo SNES.
In Game
Title screen of On the Ball on the Nintendo SNES.
Title Screen
Box cover for On the Ball on the Nintendo SNES.
Box
Box back cover for On the Ball on the Nintendo SNES.
Box Back
Cartridge artwork for On the Ball on the Nintendo SNES.
Cartridge
Top of cartridge artwork for On the Ball on the Nintendo SNES.
Cartridge Top
Arcade Cabinet Marquee for On the Ball.
Marquee


There's a kind of knick-knack you may find in dusty games rooms, a maze through which you navigate a marble by subtly tilting the board, dancing with gravity and momentum, deftly rolling your sphere out of dead ends and around the obstacles posed by holes in the board. Marble Madness explores this theme in a fudged 3-D perspective, Cloud Kingdoms in a flat 2-D one -- both by directly influencing the actions of the ball. The game takes a different approach toward a similar end; instead of moving the ball around the board, you move the board around the ball.

That's right; from the get-go, gravity pulls ever down, down, down on your ball toward the bottom of your screen regardless of board orientation; the task of the player is to rotate the board now clockwise, now counter-clockwise, to further a timely and unobstructed path beneath the ball in its progress toward each level's goal before the timer ticks down to zero. The game might as well have been named "inertia." Many obstacles can be avoided, but some must be engaged head-on: a certain momentum, if not terminal velocity, must be achieved to break through crumbling brick barriers; other obstacles toggle on and off like traffic lights, demanding not only speed but timing. Some influence the ball's direction, and in addition to merely delaying the ball's progress, touching some impediments incurs an additional time penalty -- conversely, some blocks bestow time bonuses, if you can afford the ever-diminishing time needed to take the scenic detour and collect them.

It may seem like a transparent attempt to cobble together a game around a technical demo of the SNES' Mode 7 on-the-fly graphics-rotation capabilities, but Taito actually cooked up this kooky game interface two years earlier for an arcade release of this game.

(Now if only someone could explain the "Camel" part - referencing the Japanese title.)


Most viewed Nintendo SNES games:
 Super Mario World (1991)
 Super Metroid (1994)
 The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (1992)
 Donkey Kong Country (1994)
 Super Mario Kart (1992)
 Super Mario All-Stars (1993)
 Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting (1993)
 Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (1995)
 Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (1995)
 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time (1992)
 Killer Instinct (1995)
 Sunset Riders (1993)
 Top Gear (1992)
 Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers (1994)
 Chrono Trigger (1995)
 Contra III: The Alien Wars (1992)
 American Gladiators (1993)
 Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (1992)
 Mortal Kombat 3 (1995)
 Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (1996)
 The Adventures of Batman and Robin (1994)
        
 


emumovies.com      Retro bytes Portal           Bookmark and Share

 
Developed by: Spesoft  Headsoft     Terms of use     Privacy    Advertise