Totemball
Posted October 4, 2006
Developed by Freeverse Software, Totemball is the first Xbox 360 game to take advantage of motion sensing technology when using the Xbox Live Vision camera. Most accurately, Totemball can be described as a musical platform title. The game centers on a turtle, by the name of Pterry, who is on a quest to find lost totem figures. The totems were accidentally scattered by an ancient tribe referred to as the Ptolmec. The game is extremely light on the storytelling and few players will even care about extraneous narrative. 
Obviously, the control system is a huge part of the game and gets the most attention. Placing your left and right hands in front of the camera controls Pterry's horizontal movement. The combination of moving your hands vertically determines the direction and speed that Pterry will travel. For instance, holding both hands at the top of the screen will send Pterry flying forward. Holding your left hand down and your right hand up will rotate Pterry to the left and vica versa. It's a wacky control system that has a steep learning curve and a variety of faults. For instance, jumping taken out of the player's control and is left up to the A.I. The size and power of the jump is determined by the speed of the player. In combination with the control, the jump system often leads to pointless deaths due to excessive speed and frenzied arm movements. Additionally, the control tends to kick out to the pause menu repeatedly. It's due to the camera sensing moving information at the top / middle of the screen, usually my giant cranium. It's an annoyance that pops up at the worst times.
Gameplay:
The main game mode is standard single player. Single player takes the gamer through every level and gradually increases the difficulty along the way. The object of each level requires Pterry to navigate the area search for a certain number of totems. When that number has been reached, Pterry can head to the exit. Totems are in plain sight throughout each level, but occasionally need a bit of deductive reasoning to reach them. Also, totems may need to be collected in a particular order to avoid penalties such as roving, black cloud enemies or totem limbo poles. Limbo poles knock your collected totems off the shell and enemies like to steal a totem from you. Levels are broken into a variety of environments including islands, grassy countryside and tribal areas. For the most part, Totemball alternates the level design to keep the game fresh.
Other game modes include a co-op juggling game, large scale pinball, a musical jam mode, a frenzied super challenge mode, and freeplay. The co-op juggling game is setup for two players to collect and juggle the totems. One player controls Pterry and the other hits timed corresponding buttons on a controller to max out the point totals. Unfortunately, this mode isn't Live enabled, so a real life friend is required. Pinball mode is basically a giant pinball machine that uses Pterry as the ball. Your hands control the flippers at the bottom of the machine. It's tough to get the flipper timing done at the came annoying moves with the ball rather than seeing the whole table. The musical jam mode is just a fun place to practice controls and may be more suited to children. Super challenge requires a ton of skill with the controls, as you only have one life and a time limit in place. Adversely, Freeplay allows the player to compete on any level without regard to lives or time. Sadly, you cannot choose the level you wish to work on within Freeplay. Beyond the game modes, Freeverse included Xbox Live leaderboards to compare stats with the rest of the community. Standard selections are available and help out quite a bit when checking out personal stats.
Within the levels, there are a variety of collectible items littered over the landscape. These jewels, coins, and golden statuettes will boost your overall score. Also, multipliers are hidden around the area which can up the points gained by a factor of 16. Gathering multipliers before collecting all the goodies is the safer bet to maximize the score. Of course, a quick death will kill the multiplier and three deaths will reset the score to a big fat zero. Fortunately, the game is forgiving enough to offer unlimited continues throughout the entire single player. Personally, extra lives spread along the landscape would have come in handier than the various twinkling do-dads. Finally, time breaks (in the form of floating beds) are spread within the level to offer 8 seconds to physically rest your arms. They seem a bit pointless as the pause fuction accompishes the same function.
Broken into 12 tasks, the achievements will add 200 points to your overall gamerscore if proficient at the game. The majority of the points are awarded for single player actions, but a little over 10% of the points require a multiplayer partner. Tasks such as finishing the entire single player game without losing a life or scoring 100 million points within a game seem a bit outrageous, but not impossible. Other tasks seem far too easy, but they don't offer many points. Freeverse did an excellent job creating an achievement structure that's difficult to complete without skilled hands.
Graphics:
Similar to the surprise of Marble Blast, the quality of the graphics engine is excellent for an arcade game. The size of the game clocks in over 40 MB and I bet the game textures make up a majority of that figure. The level environments are quire colorful and the texture design is top notch. While the grass appears a bit fuzzy, structures such as walls and bridges are sharp. The character animations are fluid and the design of the totems and Pterry is excellent. The physics engine is a bit floaty, but it's designed to be realistic to Pterry's balancing act. The water almost looks cell shaded and it fits in well with the cartoonish design of the area. In the background, the camera image can be seen faintly. It's just enough to determine the correct placement of your hands without covering up the visuals.
Audio:
At the time of this review, there is a nasty audio bug that randomly silences the entire audio at various points in the game. It may have something to do with the Xbox Live drops as well. Anyway, the music is light and bouncy, typical to what's found in a child's game. The musical score is surprisingly varied and changes at each level. The sound effects crank up when Pterry rolls over jewels, multipliers, and totems. There is nothing overly impressive in that department, just standard platform audio.
Conclusion:
It doesn't matter how strong your arms are, as Totemball becomes more tedious than enjoyable after a few hours of play. The novelty of motion sensing technology wears off quickly and the problematic control scheme is more trouble than it is worth. While the achievements certainly add replay value, I doubt Totemball will become a staple in any arcade collection. Since it's free, I can't fault the excellent value of the title, but I can't fully recommend it either. Anyway, demo the full version and see if the control suits you. A word of advice for those setting up the game for the first time: Make sure you have an overabundance of light within the room and an absence of moving distractions. The opposite of those can send the sliders into a spastic frenzy.
Obviously, the control system is a huge part of the game and gets the most attention. Placing your left and right hands in front of the camera controls Pterry's horizontal movement. The combination of moving your hands vertically determines the direction and speed that Pterry will travel. For instance, holding both hands at the top of the screen will send Pterry flying forward. Holding your left hand down and your right hand up will rotate Pterry to the left and vica versa. It's a wacky control system that has a steep learning curve and a variety of faults. For instance, jumping taken out of the player's control and is left up to the A.I. The size and power of the jump is determined by the speed of the player. In combination with the control, the jump system often leads to pointless deaths due to excessive speed and frenzied arm movements. Additionally, the control tends to kick out to the pause menu repeatedly. It's due to the camera sensing moving information at the top / middle of the screen, usually my giant cranium. It's an annoyance that pops up at the worst times.
Gameplay:
The main game mode is standard single player. Single player takes the gamer through every level and gradually increases the difficulty along the way. The object of each level requires Pterry to navigate the area search for a certain number of totems. When that number has been reached, Pterry can head to the exit. Totems are in plain sight throughout each level, but occasionally need a bit of deductive reasoning to reach them. Also, totems may need to be collected in a particular order to avoid penalties such as roving, black cloud enemies or totem limbo poles. Limbo poles knock your collected totems off the shell and enemies like to steal a totem from you. Levels are broken into a variety of environments including islands, grassy countryside and tribal areas. For the most part, Totemball alternates the level design to keep the game fresh.
Other game modes include a co-op juggling game, large scale pinball, a musical jam mode, a frenzied super challenge mode, and freeplay. The co-op juggling game is setup for two players to collect and juggle the totems. One player controls Pterry and the other hits timed corresponding buttons on a controller to max out the point totals. Unfortunately, this mode isn't Live enabled, so a real life friend is required. Pinball mode is basically a giant pinball machine that uses Pterry as the ball. Your hands control the flippers at the bottom of the machine. It's tough to get the flipper timing done at the came annoying moves with the ball rather than seeing the whole table. The musical jam mode is just a fun place to practice controls and may be more suited to children. Super challenge requires a ton of skill with the controls, as you only have one life and a time limit in place. Adversely, Freeplay allows the player to compete on any level without regard to lives or time. Sadly, you cannot choose the level you wish to work on within Freeplay. Beyond the game modes, Freeverse included Xbox Live leaderboards to compare stats with the rest of the community. Standard selections are available and help out quite a bit when checking out personal stats.
Within the levels, there are a variety of collectible items littered over the landscape. These jewels, coins, and golden statuettes will boost your overall score. Also, multipliers are hidden around the area which can up the points gained by a factor of 16. Gathering multipliers before collecting all the goodies is the safer bet to maximize the score. Of course, a quick death will kill the multiplier and three deaths will reset the score to a big fat zero. Fortunately, the game is forgiving enough to offer unlimited continues throughout the entire single player. Personally, extra lives spread along the landscape would have come in handier than the various twinkling do-dads. Finally, time breaks (in the form of floating beds) are spread within the level to offer 8 seconds to physically rest your arms. They seem a bit pointless as the pause fuction accompishes the same function.
Broken into 12 tasks, the achievements will add 200 points to your overall gamerscore if proficient at the game. The majority of the points are awarded for single player actions, but a little over 10% of the points require a multiplayer partner. Tasks such as finishing the entire single player game without losing a life or scoring 100 million points within a game seem a bit outrageous, but not impossible. Other tasks seem far too easy, but they don't offer many points. Freeverse did an excellent job creating an achievement structure that's difficult to complete without skilled hands.
Graphics:
Similar to the surprise of Marble Blast, the quality of the graphics engine is excellent for an arcade game. The size of the game clocks in over 40 MB and I bet the game textures make up a majority of that figure. The level environments are quire colorful and the texture design is top notch. While the grass appears a bit fuzzy, structures such as walls and bridges are sharp. The character animations are fluid and the design of the totems and Pterry is excellent. The physics engine is a bit floaty, but it's designed to be realistic to Pterry's balancing act. The water almost looks cell shaded and it fits in well with the cartoonish design of the area. In the background, the camera image can be seen faintly. It's just enough to determine the correct placement of your hands without covering up the visuals.
Audio:
At the time of this review, there is a nasty audio bug that randomly silences the entire audio at various points in the game. It may have something to do with the Xbox Live drops as well. Anyway, the music is light and bouncy, typical to what's found in a child's game. The musical score is surprisingly varied and changes at each level. The sound effects crank up when Pterry rolls over jewels, multipliers, and totems. There is nothing overly impressive in that department, just standard platform audio.
Conclusion:
It doesn't matter how strong your arms are, as Totemball becomes more tedious than enjoyable after a few hours of play. The novelty of motion sensing technology wears off quickly and the problematic control scheme is more trouble than it is worth. While the achievements certainly add replay value, I doubt Totemball will become a staple in any arcade collection. Since it's free, I can't fault the excellent value of the title, but I can't fully recommend it either. Anyway, demo the full version and see if the control suits you. A word of advice for those setting up the game for the first time: Make sure you have an overabundance of light within the room and an absence of moving distractions. The opposite of those can send the sliders into a spastic frenzy.