Trailblazer

As a child, balls are your friends.  You play catch, you play kiddie basketball at Chuck E Cheese, and eventually grow to play real sports.  As a teen, you’re faster, stronger, more connected with the ball than ever before.  Later, when adulthood takes its toll, you lose touch with the rounded ones, turning to televised sports for your ball fix. 

Gamers, on the other hand, learn to appreciate balls on more than one level.  Sports – that’s old news.  Marble Madness – that’s been done.  It’s time for a new kind of experience, a ballsy one that combines the speed of Sonic, the feel of a racing game, and courses that are comparable to a rollercoaster.  Trailblazer takes those integral pieces and places them into one extremely addictive game. 

I started off thinking it was easy.  All of the tracks I raced were straight!  This was no dragster though.  The ball could bounce, gain speed (by rolling over boost arrows), and get caught in any one of the obstacles that stood in its way. 

The most frequently seen obstacle was a force field wall.  However, if you’re not paying attention, you might just end up falling right through the track!  Track stretches are short, meaning that you’ll have to switch paths very often.  Jump, slow down, increase your speed.  Do whatever you must to make sure that the next track – whether it’s above, below, or on the side – is reached. 

This simple concept made for an instantly addictive experience.  Start the level, pick up speed – BAM!  I hit a wall.  Start again, jump over the wall and I’m free!  Free-falling, that is.  Losing several times in a row would normally deter me from wanting to continue playing, the exception being if the game is really good.  Considering that I didn’t want to put the Gizmondo down, you can be sure that Trailblazer was one of the exceptions. 

Graphically the game wasn’t as colorful as the screenshots, but that’s likely due to either (A) the build that I was playing or (B) I didn’t get to the best levels yet.  As it stood the game was anything but ugly, utilizing an acceptable amount of the Gizmondo’s power.  The frame rate was fast, pixilation did not occur, fog was not present, and the overall speed of the game was excellent.  It could’ve been made for almost any platform, but right now it’s only on Gizmondo, and it’s just the kind of game the console needs to succeed.

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