Cat5

The ball is an enjoyable, single player romp. A unique mix of game play and puzzles make the 8 hour campaign well worth the $20. Achievements and trying to find 30+ well placed secrets adds to the replay value. There is really no story to speak of, any combat of note is puzzle based, and there is no penalty for dying except picking up from where you left off. That's actually a good thing, as you can focus on the puzzles, and admire the level design, rendered beautifully with the Unreal 3 engine. The levels tend to be huge, and have a retro feel, which made me smile remembering the first time I saw lava in Duke Nukem 3D. The 4 Survival mini games feel tacked on, but show the same great attention to detail in the level design as the campaign. Easy to beat if you stay between 2 traps and just swing your ball around.. Almost feels like a testing ground for co-op, which would be awesome with some more interesting, unique monsters... They did skimp on the beta testing, as there are a lot of places where you can get "Stuck" when secret hunting. Given it only takes maybe 30 seconds to reload and get back to where you were, and a $20 price tag, I'll give a pass. The possibilities are endless with the Ball, and I hope to see a sequel soon. Nothing better than having a couple of Balls :) No idea what SuperTakashii is talking about. The Ball becomes transparent automatically when appropriate, and you have the option to make that a constant. The graphics are very nice and smooth, maxed out on my I7-860 + GTX470 rig, running XP at 1280x1024 I think Hellbot got confused, as this game was only just reviewed by PC gamer 01/18/11, with an 81.. ****/2011/01/18/the-ball-review/