By Joel Smart (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: January 9, 2013
When four indie developers received funding for PS3 versions of their award-winning games—available later this year in a combo pack known as Sportsfriends—it meant that soon gamers would have access to some of the most unique titles being created today. The four games—Hokra, Super Pole Riders, BaraBariBall and Johann Sebastian Joust—have almost nothing in common, except that they’re all multiplayer games that pit friends against each other. They are sports you can play in your living room – but not like any other sports you’ve ever heard of.
Take J.S. Joust, for example. Technically, it may not even be a video game, though it does use up to seven PlayStation Move controllers. In this game, two to seven players pick up a Move and hold it upright. J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos then play as players face off against each other – attempting to hold their controller still while attempting to reach out and jostle the controller of another. Often the game winds down to two player circling around like wrestlers, looking for an opportunity to swat at their friend’s hand. Can it be a video game if it has no graphics? In fact, it only uses the TV to play music – though this fact is important, because as the music speeds up, the sensors in the controller allow more movement – allowing players to dash at their friends. However, when the music slows down, the player must move at a snail’s pace, protecting their controller from any movement.
Hokra is a completely different type of game, using a super minimalist box-like approach to focus entirely on the mechanic of “passing a ball.” Here, with two players to a side, players must pass a ball back and forth in order to keep it away from the opposing side, while attempting to hold it within a specific goal-zone until the points-meter fills up. Because players move faster when they aren’t carrying the ball, the team that can pass the best usually wins.
BaraBariBall is perhaps the most sport-like of the four games, despite playing a lot like Super Smash Brothers. In this game, players pick a character (each with different attacks and techniques), and then attempt to move a white ball into the scoring zone on opponent’s side of the map – which just so happens to be a pit of water. Fall in the water yourself and lose a point. Adding to the fun arcade-like feel of the game is the fact that players can jump seven times without touching the ground – with an indication on the screen showing how many are used and when those jumps are recharged. Players use stuns, dashes, attacks and ball handling techniques to either score points or knock opponents into the water. It’s a fighting game for two-to-four players that has a lot of elements of both basketball and volleyball in it. It’s perhaps the game that would require the most practice to excel at, but once learned, it also offers the most depth.
Finally, Super Pole Riders, is a game made by famed-developer Bennett Foddy (best known for the free online game QWOP). In Super Pole Riders, two players face off against each other, each armed with pole-vaulting stick. The idea is to vault into the air and kick a suspended red ball along a pully until it reaches the opponent’s end of the map. The game is quite silly, in principle and in action, but that only adds to the charm of the game. Players will often find themselves whipped into the air by the pole of their opponent, or trapped on the ground in a bid for the ball. But every so often everything goes just as planned and it feels oh, so right. It’s the game you play when you want to roll on the floor laughing with your friend.
Each game offers a different element of sport, whether it be the ability to protect your defence, the ability to work with a teammate, the ability to perfect your technique, or the ability to make the most of a hectic situation. While they may not seem like sports in the most objective of terms, they are the type of games a group of players can enjoy at a party or with their best friends. They can be enjoyed by those who rarely play (especially in the case of J.S. Joust) or by those who play non-stop (especially in the case of BaraBariBall). Even if you’re not usually into indie games with simple (or no) graphics, if you like to have fun with your friends, you should definitely keep your eye out for the Sportsfriends collection.
