Nukezilla Review: The Ball (PC)

The Ball might be the first time I’ve felt like I was playing a Guillermo del Toro film.

Set in Mexico in 1940, The Ball immediately drops the player, an unnamed archaeologist, into a series of caverns and ancient ruins from some bygone civilization. Not all seems right in this Meso-American labyrinth though, as signs of life, violent struggles and strange advanced technology of unknown origin start popping up to let the player know they’re in for a strange journey.

Shortly after your fall, you stumble upon what will be your only tools on your journey through the underworld. The first, a strange, bejeweled and skull adorned mechanical hammer, will be the only item players interact directly with. The second is the mysterious, titular ball: an indestructible, six-foot metal sphere of dubious origin. Players interact with the world around them largely by either hitting the ball with the hammer by left clicking, or calling the ball back to them by right clicking.

It may not sound like much to keep track of, but before long the tunnels and hallways give way to complex physics puzzles mainly built around the player’s use of, you guessed it, the ball. There is enough variety to keep the challenges from getting old, from simple weight switches to more complex tasks such as giving the ball an electrical charge, shocking some ancient machine back into order. There are even sections where the ball can create its own anti-gravity field for the player to use. It doesn’t get quite as mind-bending as Portal, but it rarely resorts to “push box A onto switch B”.

The Ball forces players to fend for themselves against mummies and other monsters that stand between them and, hopefully, their freedom. Combat itself in The Ball becomes something of a physics puzzle, as once again players have to rely on rolling and recalling the ball to fight. The smaller enemies can be knocked back with the hammer, but the only way to kill anything is either with the ball itself or by triggering traps.

Which brings me to quite possibly the coolest boss battle I’ve seen in quite some time. Those wishing to avoid spoilers might want to skip the next paragraph, but to be fair the developers pretty much showed off the coolest part of it in the early screen-shots.

After working your way through the ruins of an old town hitting switches to open the gate to the next area a loud, animal growl can be heard beyond the final wall. Hitting the last switch unveils an expected end of level fight with an unexpectedly amazing opponent: Zombie King Kong. OK, so it’s not really the King Kong, but it’s a giant gorilla kept behind a giant gate. Come on.

The game moves along at a steady pace, never dragging to the extent that the player loses the sense of urgency and tension the atmosphere and sound design so brilliantly create. It took me about eight hours to play through the story, but I took time to take notes to figure out several of the puzzles, so depending on your pace and problem solving skills it might move slightly quicker.

The game also features a series of four Survival Mode maps that throw hundreds of enemies at the player in waves, leaving it up to you, the ball and the death traps strewn throughout the level to survive. I still haven’t been able to complete any of them after several tries, so fans of the game’s unique combat will find plenty of enjoyment here.

Teotl Studios have created a beautiful world with this Unreal mod-turned full retail game, and I can’t wait to see where they take us next.