Smashell - XBox 360 Community Game

Review by www.GamerOutfit.com

Rating:

Smashell is a score game with platform-like gameplay. Reach the highest score by taking advantage of several bonuses and upgrades, collecting coins and eating fruits, making combos and more!

Smashell Box Art

The Good

• Graphics
• Unique platformer

Needs Improvement

• Controls
• Pace

Smashell, by developer Antab, is a platformer game just released for the XBox 360 under the community games portal.  In Smashell you move a ball around a floating playfield and collect coins to complete the game.  Along the way you obtain power ups, helper bots, even weapons to aid in your mission.  There are many different enemies along the way bent on stopping you and they come from the ground in the form of spinners with spikes, from the air as ghosts dropping bombs on you, and even from large enemy bosses who sit there and spew homing bomb drones yoru way.

The game plays out in an arena with a game-show type vibe to it.  You see your score up on a large television screen and hear voice overs for various actions.  The graphics are fun and friendly and look very much like a Mario (Editor: Mario Bros. by Nintendo Corp) game which is a good thing.  The sound effects are pleasant, the visuals are very well done, and the polish on the game is top-notch.

When I first watched the video for Smashell the one thing that jumped out at me was the speed at which the ball rolls around.  It looked sluggish.  When I got to play the game my fears were realized as the ball does move very sluggishly around the arena.  Granted, the arena is small and you can easily roll off if you aren't careful, but I was always looking for a boost or speed up button to move the action along.  The game does have puzzle elements but I'd like to see a bit more on the action side and have a ball that rolls very fast when I want it to.  I believe some more time needs to be spent on the controls or feedback to the ball for the game to feel "right".

As you progress through the game you will encounter bosses that look great but are hard to destroy at first.  It took me a while to figure out that I had to destroy spikes that appeared on the playfield in order to kill the first boss off.  It's interesting that there was help all along the game up to that point to tell me what to do and when but that it was noticeably absent on the one part of the game I had a hard time figuring out.  I was able to finally kill the boss by taking out the spikes and was rewarded with a special coin that let's me avoid a game-over scenario (you spend the coins to continue the game.)

You can tell the developer(s) behind Smashell spent a good amount of time making the game shine and have created a unique platformer experience (although not groundbreaking.)  The first level I played on was fun and there are three more I haven't tried yet.

Smashell is available now on the Marketplace for 400 points.