He's the king of the swingers......
Oddball by name, Oddball by nature. There is no other way to describe it. You play the titular King Oddball who is rather upset with folks trying to invade his land, or is it a case of the land trying to defend itself from Oddball? Your guess is as good as mine, as is guessing what inspired this game in the first place!
Oddball is a living wrecking ball, with his tongue being used as the chain and rocks, grenades (and thanks to the new DLC for Halloween) lumps of candy, you hurl these missiles at Tanks, Soldiers, and helicopters using them as 10 pins. Work out your angles, and timing because you only have a few missiles to throw, but should you catch one or if it comes into gentle contact with Oddball, you'll get it back and it may become a golden nugget, which means it hits harder and can do more damage.
Plot?
The plot is non existent, it's as described above and with that comes the simplest of control setups you can have. The tongue swings by itself, you cannot alter it's speed, length or angle. The only button you need is the A button, that launches the missile at it's targets, simple.
Look I know this is short but...
When you get a game that's as basic as this then there's not much detail you can go into. But it has to be said don't let it's simplistic looks fool you. It's tricky, because the missiles never quite bounce the same way twice, and it very much a case of pot luck as to how objects break, bounce etc.
As each tank or helicopter explodes you rack up a multiplier and there's another way of gaining a new missile and that's scoring a X3 multiplier or better on the attack.
Soundtrack
A simple tune that repeats itself over and over. You'll either be humming it without realising it or muting the music.
Physics
As said things tend to act somewhat randomly it has to be said but that adds to the puzzle element as not only do you want to work out the angle of attack but the timing of release.
It will frustrate and make you punch the air in triumph in equal measure.
Summary
For a conversion from a finger swiping game on a mobile device to a console, this game works fine and is entertaining and with over a 100 levels will certainly keep you going for quite some time. With sub challenges such as the Diamond levels, the hand grenades and the Halloween themed puzzles (will we get Xmas levels with snowballs? I wouldn't bet against it) this has a lot to offer.
But is it worth getting? Yes and no. It's not a must buy in my opinion, it won't appeal to everyone (and to be frank I have to admit on getting the code from those lovely X Box folks, I wasn't holding out much hope for it) but it's worth a look if you want something bizarre and different.