Madballs return in summer XBLA game News • News • Eurogamer.net

News Xbox 360

Squidgy toy-heads from 1980s.

Developer Plybrains wants to resurrect 1980s phenomena Madballs on Xbox Live Arcade.

Madballs were baseball-sized, grotesque monster-heads made out of what might as well have been marshmallows. We had a few. Did they squirt water? I can't remember.

The game, Madballs in... Babo: Invasion, arrives this summer and shoves Oculus Orbus and Cyclops into an arena for a fight. They were popular characters and they will have special powers like ramming and spins and slashes and that sort of thing.

There's multiplayer for up to 16 people and, interestingly, the option to import Xbox Live Avatars for some arena-based shooter combat. Maps can be made by players, too.

Presumably more characters will be added if the clumsily named game proves successful.

There's no word on price, but we do have a couple of concept-to-game shots to stare at.

About Madballs in Babo Invasion
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- Release date 14/07/2009
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More about Madballs in Babo Invasion
Related game pages
- Madballs in Babo Invasion on Xbox 360

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

Comments (21) Latest comment 3 years ago

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jonsaan #1 3 years ago

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Your link is broken! I have no recollection of madballs at all. Make it work pleassey!
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Wastelander #2 3 years ago

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I remember Madballs!

I had Lock-lips, the figure version where the head popped off.
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Wastelander #3 3 years ago

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I had the fourth one in as well!

'kin 'ell, I'd totally forgotten about those. They were ace.
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Monkey_Puncher #4 3 years ago

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I remember the name, I also remember having an ugly ball thing that squirted water out it's mouth (haha).
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Monkey_Puncher #5 3 years ago

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Just looked at the concept, yup I definetly had one of those things. What an odd choice of license to bring back...
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StooMonster #6 3 years ago

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Back in 1987 my colleagues at Denton Designs created the Commodore 64 version of the 'Mad Balls' game.

It was a license that Ocean had bought and asked us to create a game for, and they created the Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum ports.

http://im age.com.com/gamespot/images/big... for cover artwork. Just found the loading screen, and remember that I think I did it. [link url=http://www.lemon64.com/games/popup_screen.php? name=madballs_01.gif
]http://ww w.lemon64.com/games/popup_scree...[/link]

It was terrible, I never like the concept from day one (sorry guys, if you ever read this).
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jonsaan #7 3 years ago

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Props to you Stoomonster!

The Great escape! Was that one of yours?

Edited by 1 at 18/06/09 @ 15:31
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StooMonster #8 3 years ago

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Cheers, the loading screen on the speccy version was.
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jonsaan #9 3 years ago

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elephant_stone #10 3 years ago

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NYHC Madball?

I still have an original "Madballs" toy somewhere
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photoboy #11 3 years ago

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I remember having the cartoon for this on tape, I seem to recall they arrived in a spaceship, possibly made from a garbage can, although I might be confusing that with the Garbage Pail Kids.
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YourMessageHere #12 3 years ago

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I dimly remember these. Specifically, I dimly remember thinking that these were stupid and why the hell would anyone want one of these when there was Lego and Transformers and Matchbox cars.
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woodnotes #13 3 years ago

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I thought they were called Bods for some reason.
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sweatshop78 #14 3 years ago

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Still got my 'Screamin Meemie'(the one that looked like a baseball). Madball the band are legendary- seen them many times.
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SEVQA #15 3 years ago

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Holly crap I so had all the Madballs and then a massive American football Madball - oh and I don't think they ever squirted water and were actually quite hard!
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8bitMofo #16 3 years ago

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I remember having the cartoon for this on tape, I seem to recall they arrived in a spaceship, possibly made from a garbage can, although I might be confusing that with the Garbage Pail Kids.

We are one, in the same.
http://www .youtube.com/watch?v=B2FsO90jFhQ
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SEVQA #17 3 years ago

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Garbage Pal Kids return in winter XBLA game
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photoboy #18 3 years ago

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@8bitMofo

Awesome find, I'm watching it now...
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sweatshop78 #19 3 years ago

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Some of them had 'slime' in them. My Cousin and I managed to take the varnish off an antique bookcase with said 'slime'.
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convercide #20 3 years ago

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I had the toy variants where you hit a switch of the back of their human like bodies and the head popped off.

These guys.
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SteveBhoy88 #21 3 years ago

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This game will be ace! i've been playing the free version Bv2 for a long time now and there is alot of people waiting to play this -> ([link url=http://rndlabs.ca)]http://rndlabs.ca)[/link] anyway i have no memory of madballs but i think the idea fits in well for a few reasons.

One being that the original game is simply a ball with some guns and you have the choice to customize your babo with some colours or whatever but now there is some proper characters to kick some ass with and the addition of the avatar feature on xbla makes it alot more personal which everyone loves.

Plus i look here and see that nobody has ever heard of this game and that the only reason you were curious was because of the Madballs title which obviously draws in some publicity . I think you can dismiss any rumours of (ohh no a madballs game how lame) imo i think the name is just to draw in some new gamers but i think the true concept of the free version will still be at heart.

Can't wait for Babo:Invasion!!!
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