Game Reviews

Gasketball

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| Gasketball
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Gasketball
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| Gasketball

Building contraptions to outsmart fellow human beings is always going to be more interesting than trying to flummox a machine. Machines tend not to howl in frustration, or weep when you beat them soundly into a gibbering, defeated mess.

So while Gasketball might have an entertaining single-player mode, the meat of its experience lies on the asynchronous battlefield, where the true heroes of futuristic, robot-cajoled sport are born and raised.

Robo balls

The game is all about getting a basketball through a basket while fulfilling the criteria the game has set for you. That might mean a certain number of bounces, or hitting a piece of scenery before any others.

If you want to score any points, you have five chances to score in the right way. Fail on the fifth and you'll still move onto the next level, but in an embarrassing, shame-faced way, rather than wearing the glory of success across your sweating brow.

A robot helps you through the basics, and clears up after you when you make a mess, but bouncing the ball into the basket - by flicking it in the right direction - is all down to you.

As the game goes on you'll have to contend with switches that flip the gravity of a level, portals that suck in the ball and spit it out somewhere else, and spinning blades that slash the ball and force you to start again.

Bounce of courage

As enjoyable as the single-player is, it's really just a primer for the fantastic multiplayer. It's a game of H-O-R-S-E, and you have to build the levels that you think are going to prove too difficult for your opponent to complete.

You spin a wheel to begin with, which gives you the scoring requirements for your shot. Then you're given a number of different obstacles with which to create your masterpiece. It's a brilliant system, and it's complimented by a same-device mode as well.

You'll only have a small selection of objects to build with at first, but you can unlock them by playing, or flash some cash and get them all as an in-app purchase.

Gasketball is a wonderful blend of intriguing content that pushes you to experiment, asking you to think like a level designer as you build your challenges. Some of the single-player levels can be frustrating, but this is still a well thought-out, entertaining physics-puzzler.

Gasketball

An excellent multiplayer portion makes up for an occasionally flimsy single-player campaign to make Gasketball a highly recommended purchase
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.