King Oddball

pro

King Oddball's take on the Angry Birds formula is fine. The levels never feel too challenging, and as a result the game functions as something you can dabble in while watching TV, and still have some sense of progression without putting too much energy into it. Unlocking pieces of the map will enable a couple of new modes, including a grenade throw as well as challenge levels where you start with only one stone. With all modes unlocked you have a couple of hundred levels to churn through. The simple mechanics and physics of the game are serviceable.

pro

There's not a lot in the way of surprises, but neat touches like Oddball suddenly grabbing the pause-symbol so you can use it as a stone is funny. In terms of the general presentation it does the job.

con

The complete lack of challenge in the level design leaves much to be desired - only a handful of levels require more than a couple of retries. The extra modes do add to this, but not nearly enough to give any sense of accomplishment when you're done. Even as you progress you would think that levels would become harder, but the difficulty curve isn't really much of a curve at all.

con

Most of the time you will be facing tanks and military choppers, and these don't do much to enhance the gameplay. Some choppers are moving, and the way they fall when hit leaves a small room for creativity when solving a level, but imagine if these military vehicles would for example fire a projectile that could potentially interfere with your stone throwing? As it stands, none of the puzzles are anywhere near interesting and it's just a matter of getting through them.

con

There is no point or star system to give you any indication of how you did, and more importantly, a reason to go back to perfect your attempt. The verdict from the game gives you some feedback with stuff like "Good enough" and "Fantastic!", but for a game like this to peak any kind of interest you definitely need a better reason to try again.

con

It is by no means a looker. It is clear in what it does and how it presents it, but there's nothing exciting or exceedingly creative about it. King Oddball is a bizarre and funny character to look at, but the environments and enemies are pretty bland.