Iggy's Reckin' Balls
Reviewed by Scott McCall
Iggy's Reckin' Balls is a completely off-the-wall creation
from the new, more focused, more mature Acclaim. Designed
at Acclaim's original Iguana studios in Austin, Texas, Iggy's Reckin'
Balls takes a surprisingly cute approach at bringing two genres
together. At the core is a "vertical" racing game (meaning you
always go up) with lots of platforming action and even some puzzles
thrown into a 2-D gameplay mix. Even though the game is obviously
aimed at kids, Iggy's Reckin' Balls is hardly a cakewalk and requires
some keen hand-eye coordination to become skilled at. In fact,
Iggy's Reckin' Balls is more of a throw back to games of old. You
won't find fancy intelligence, special techniques, or watered-down
game design. But what you will find is essentially a platform
game that forces you to memorize and practice levels over and
over in order to become good. Now factor in a great multi-player
mode, and you've got a winner.
When you turn on the game for the first time, you'll have the
opportunity to choose between eight Reckin' Balls. These cool
character designs have different abilities. One might be a great
grappler while another might be the fastest on straight platforms.
And, yes, there are many hidden characters, too. There are also
five worlds (10 levels in each world) to choose from the first time
you play with at least another five more hidden worlds. That means
there are over 100 levels in the game!
There are five game modes in Iggy's Reckin' Balls. The best and
most important mode is "Race." In this mode, four Reckin' Balls
battle their way to the top. If only one player is playing, then
the computer will control the other three Reckin' Balls. In the
two-player mode, there are two computer opponents. And in the
three-player mode, the computer will even take control of the
fourth Reckin' Ball. You are given points depending on where you
finish. You get 10 points and a gold medal for first place. You get
7 points and a silver medal for second place. You get 4 points
and a bronze medal for third place. And you get 2 points for a
fourth place finish. But there's a small problem for the fourth
place person: Once third place has made it to the finish line, fourth
place then only has 10 seconds to reach the finish. If you don't
reach it in time, then you get 0 points and must use one of your
three continues.
Tied into the Race mode is the "Game Mix-Up" mode. This fantastic
idea lets you make your own 10-level Championship from any
previously completed Championships in the Race mode. So now you
and your friends can pick any 10 levels you want to determine who's
the fastest, who's the best grappler, and who's the best overall.
The "Versus" mode is essentially like the Race mode, except there
aren't any computer opponents. The "Time Trial Tournament" lets
you race any level and save the best times to the Controller Pak. A
Time Trial mode is kind of lame for this type of game, though.
Finally, there's the "Battle Match" mode. Granted, it's nowhere near
the level of Mario Kart 64's Battle Mode. OK, so it's not even as
fun as the main Race multi-player mode. But at least it's better
than the multi-player mode in, like, Chameleon Twist. So how does
it work? Well, each Reckin' Ball has three balloons. Each time
you're attacked (either with a grapple attack or a power-up),
then you lose one balloon. Also, once you lose all your balloons,
you can still have fun since you'll be turned into a bomb.
The only options in Iggy's Reckin' Balls are to change sound volumes,
difficulty levels, and control schemes. Fortunately, the default
control scheme is more than sufficient. You use the Control Stick
to move your little Reckin' Ball left or right. Too bad there's no
Control Pad support, because special analog support is non-existent.
The A button is for jumping, the B button is for grappling, the
Z button is to use a power-up, and the R button lets you jump and
grapple with one button. You also have some offensive and defensive
moves. For example, you can jump on someone to smash them for a
second. Or you can grapple them. From there, you can slam them
or toss them. In defense, you can duck, jump down levels, or even
hang from a platform.
It's fairly difficult to describe in words what the racing action
in Iggy's Reckin' Balls is like. But I'll give it a shot. Racing takes
place on platforms. Thankfully, you cannot fall off the side of these
platforms. You can, however, fall off whenever a piece of the
track stops (you need to jump and/or grapple to the next part),
but a special dragonfly puts you back almost exactly where you
fell off rather quickly. So the object is to reach the top of the
level. Fortunately, the game has arrows that show where you're
supposed to go -- be it left, right, or up. Each level is a certain
length and has a certain number of laps. For the most part,
levels will only have two or three laps, but there could be more
or less. Where there's a big difference is in the length of a level. For
example, the first level on Easy Street takes like five seconds
to complete a lap. But a future level might take a few minutes for a lap.
Along the way on each level, there are different tower gadgets,
tower dangers, platform elements, enemy characters (enemy
characters are different from computer-controlled Reckin' Balls),
and even different paths to contend with. For example, you'll
come across lots of armored platforms. You can't grapple through
them. That means you must find a regular portion that will let you
grapple up. So you'll be going left, right, and in circles to find
the next higher platform you can grapple. Some of the gadgets
you'll encounter will warp you to a different place, let you jump
over huge chasms, enable you to get caught in a bubble to float
to a platform that's too high to reach, and more. Some of the
dangers you'll find are enemies who want to stomp you, push you
off a platform, and slow you down. There are also objects that
can do the same thing, not to mention moving platforms, goo
platforms, and icy platforms trying to prevent you from reaching
your goal.
You're not completely defenseless, though. First and foremost,
you always have a special turbo boost that can be activated with
the Z button. You get four of them, and it refills every lap. But
that doesn't mean Iggy's Reckin' Balls is a mad dash to the finish
line, because the great level design and the ability only to turbo
left and right (not up) means turbo only comes into play at
certain points in time. However, on some levels there are
"Goodies," or power-ups, scattered on the platforms. They look
like a star. Picking one up temporarily replaces your turbo, but
it gives you something cool in return. There are various projectiles,
there are a few bombs, there's invincibility, there's something that
reverses everyone else's controls briefly, there's an item that
temporarily freezes opponents, and there's a nifty item that will
lift you up and take you to 2nd player's position.
For being on a 32-megabit cartridge, Iggy's Reckin' Balls looks
and sounds surprisingly good. Each of the 3-D worlds has its own
theme, which means the game really doesn't have the look of
repetition. The backgrounds are particularly well done, giving a
nice sense of depth with parallax scrolling, which is most noticeable
in the one-player mode. The Reckin' Balls are animated very well,
too. Viewing distance becomes more and more limited in the
multi-player modes, though, with a slight hint of fog, and there is
a frame rate drop once you divide the screen into four. Wisely, the
developers included the option to split a two-player screen either
horizontally or vertically. All you need to do is pause to access
it. You can also zoom the camera in and out with the C buttons
to get a better idea of what's above you.
The techno-based soundtrack in Iggy's Reckin' Balls is fine.
The stereo music won't make you get up and dance, but it
doesn't intrude very much. It can get slightly repetitive, but
it's better than a lot of the music we heard in the first-generation
of N64 games. There are also lots of cute sound effects, and
all of the Reckin' Balls have their own voice and comments.
Iggy's Reckin' Balls scores extra points for being original
and for combining platforming and racing, which are my
two personal favorite genres. On the downside, the game
can get repetitive and some of the later level designs border
on insane. And the one-player mode will definitely wear thin.
Also, three- and four-player racing is very much an objective
thing, since the screens can seem even more scrunched than
usual because you're always racing upwards. So Iggy's
Reckin' Balls is at its best in the two-player mode. Since this
is probably going to be a game you either love or hate, you
would be wise to try before you buy. If you like the game
and find someone else who also likes it, then you'll be in for
one of the more enjoyable and longer lasting gaming experiences
you've had in some time. The low retail price ($39.95) certainly
doesn't hurt, either.
Graphics: 3.8 out of 5
Sound: 3.6 out of 5
Control: 3.9 out of 5
Gameplay: 4.1 out of 5
Lastability: 3.9 out of 5
Overall: 3.9 out of 5