REVIEW: Face Ball 2000 1992 SNES
	By: Xanth/Bulletproof Software Type: First-person shooter Players: 2 Difficulty: Moderate

One of my favorite pursuits in video game collecting is picking up the sleeper games that are great fun but rarely received any attention or acclaim in their time, especially commercially. Faceball 2000 definitely is one of those games.

In fact, it's one of my favorite games of all time. First developed by Xanth Software F/X all the way back in 1987, Faceball preceded the Doom phenomenon yet duplicated that hit's first-person shooting style. With a few twists, that is.

Faceball is a kind man's Doom, so to speak. You take the role of a smiley-faced ball sort of along the lines of Pac Man, though three-dimensional. And you take on enemies called Smiloids, equally friendly-looking balls, half-spheres and other odd-shaped characters like diamonds and discs with nothing more than two big eyes and smiles on what us humans would call their faces.

And you fire equally innocent ammunition -- also balls. There isn't any blood, wild explosions or disintegrating bodies, but there is a lot of fun.

There are two main modes of play -- Cyberzone and Arena. Cyberzone is a one-player game in which you go through many different themed zones (such as city, desert, etc.) and named levels within those zones (Honolulu, Yokohama, Seattle and many more). There you face the previously mentioned enemies in increasingly complex mazes. Your goal is to take out all the enemies
to open the exit and move on to the next level.

Sound easy? Well, it is -- for a while. Simple yellow enemies like SHOOTME move slowly and, in case you haven't guessed by its name, at a snail's pace. Others like ISHOOT2 fire back but still are uncoordinated. In later levels, the green GREMLINS hover over the ground and move quickly but have no shooting ability, while the blue, diamond-shaped BOUNCERS possess the best of both the speed and firing worlds.

The Arena lets you choose how many Smiloids you want to battle against, as well as what types, for up to six in the maze at a time. You also can choose from 16 mazes to test your luck in, each one differing in overall size and complexity.

Either game mode can be enjoyed with two players using a vertical split-screen format, and that's when the fun really begins. Bomberman almost always takes the crown for best party game, but I think Faceball 2000 deserves a shot at that title. Players can work together in Cyberzone to complete the levels or sabotage one another to claim all the glory for themselves. The Arena also is great for perfecting one's skills or taking on a friend in a one-on-one game along the lines of Doom's Death Match.

Power-ups in the game are simple and somewhat rare, consisting of the expected speed and shot increases as well as armor, coins for point increases and temporary timers that stop enemies dead in their tracks. Nothing terribly special, but enough.

The graphics are admittedly simple, obviously designed in a time when the genre of three-dimensional, first-person shooters still was in its infancy. The game uses the Super Nintendo's Mode 7 scaling capabilities well, although the game moves rather slowly without speed power-ups, especially in the early levels. But things speed up, especially when the SHOOTME Smiloids are gone and the ROAMERS and BOUNCERS are on the loose. Sound is simple and sparse, although the "Have a nice day" goodbye that an enemy spouts after taking you out is an especially nice touch.

And there are many of those touches in this game. Faceball 2000 allows you to choose the look of your character in terms of its color and shape as well as give it a specific name. This is especially cool in two-player mode, as the game displays the name of each enemy you face at the bottom of the screen, another nice touch. And your player's energy is measured by the smiley faces that so often grace its face. At the top of the screen is a range that goes from full smile to frown to tongue-sticking-out, a cute way of tracking energy that also is very functional. You regain energy simply by hanging out and not getting into battles with other Smiloids, a great feature that gives you a better chance of survival than if you had to collect energy power-ups.

What's really great about Faceball 2000 is the fun factor, the playability. Every time you blow away an enemy and finish a level there's that desire to take on even more. The control is basic and clean and the graphics are simple but easy on the eyes -- and even are cute at times. The gameplay is totally addictive and kept me coming back some six years after the Faceball 2000 first came out. I used to rent it almost every week at my local video store to have one-on-one battles with my best friend -- and to avoid the game's sticker price, which back in 1992 was $59.99. But you now can pick up Faceball for less than $15 -- I found my mint copy for $7.99 and have seen boxed copies for $14.99 elsewhere. So if you're looking for something different, a great twist on the now-classic 3D shooter theme, you definitely should give Faceball 2000 a try -- especially for less than 10 bucks.

Until then, "Have a nice day."  - Jason Whitman 85%

[Key to the reviewing system]

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