Oh, it’s a colourful world! Take your hamster for a spin through time and make it squeek.
I’m not particular blown away by Hamsterball – but I don’t dislike the game either. It’s somewhere in the middle – and like every other game, it has its pros and cons. You can choose between a few different hamsters, but they all look the same – only the ball, the hamster is in, has different colors – the hamsters does have different abilities, so it’s worth it if you try out them all. There’s a huge pile of levels, so there’s lots of experiences to obtain in the game – and many tracks even have different paths. One thing I noticed, and had a few mixed feelings about in all the excitement about the many levels, was that many of the levels are remade and reused throughout the game. Roll away that hamster!
What to do?
You are rolling along the different tracks, from point A to B, and rarely lapping the track, but it occurs. There’s different props, enemies, jumps, paths and even gravity, to figure out. Luckily there’s no limit to the error-rate. There’s no limit in lives – you can do as many errors as you like – though they will of course slow you down – and time is all that matters in this game! There’s plenty of hints in form of signs implemented in the tracks, so you won’t be lost in the tracks.
The only fun you can have in this game with a friend – or friends – is a sumo-like challenge against each other. You can add and remove human and CPU players as you like before the game. The challenge is to get as many points as possible before time runs out. You get a point every time one of the opponents falls off the arena. Bounce away the opponents!
Colors and environments – concept and sound effects. Sound might be amusing, but it’s still repetitive. I would say the sumo-mode against friends would be the funniest in this game, though rolling through the colorful levels are pretty satisfying – especially when you get to goal in a level you have had a bit trouble to get in time.
It's all hamsters
Soundtrack might be a bit corny, and really repetitive, but fits the game pretty decent – very cartoonish and acoustic sounding, and you get a bit nostalgic, if you have played games for more than 5 years. The game is beautiful to look at with lots of vibrant colors that sometimes makes you feel you are rolling through candyland on drugs, and that’s with a hamster inside a ball!
What bugged me the most in this game (besides the repetitive feeling) was reusing the levels after remaking them. Changing environments, colors and paths is making another feel of the level, but nonetheless, you are able to recognize the level if you are anything like me that automatically remembers small details like this. Though, I don’t see this as a real problem, it’s just an observation.
All in all this is pretty decent game, looking at the price and the number of levels to beat. Since it doesn’t vary too much and it seems like the developers has tried to make as many levels as possible – without this being a bad thing – the game doesn’t tops the list, but I do find it amusing to play for a while.
