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When I first saw Blazing Birds listed as a potential Xbox Live Arcade game, my first thought was that it was going to be a flying game, perhaps air combat. But when I saw it was badminton with robot surrogates as the players, I thought what you’re probably thinking now: “Wow, that should be pretty boring.”
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As I played the title and got deeper into the gameplay, though, I realized that such a preconception was way off the mark. The project developer, David Flook from Toronto, has crafted enough variations on badminton and put some twists in to improve its playability. It’s more fun than you’d expect—and there wasn’t much surprise that it was co-winner of Microsoft’s 2007 Dream-Play-Win competition, which was intended to recognize the best community games created with the company’s XNA programming tools. As a result of that success, Blazing Birds was targeted for release on XBLA, instead of just available through the Community Games channel of Xbox Live, and earned Flook a cool $10,000 for his efforts. (The other winner in the contest, The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai by New York’s James Silva, earned its creator the same rewards. We’ll be previewing it shortly on TeamXbox.)
Badminton is an easy game to understand, with tennis-like racquets being used to hit a “shuttlecock,” better known as a “bird,” back and forth over a net. Each side is limited to one shot to get the bird over the net each time during the volley. As for Blazing Birds, that description is mostly fits as well, though our robots use some sort of laser racquet (which makes the sound like a “Star Wars” lightsaber when it’s moved) to hit the bird to the opponent. All it takes to hit the bird is a press on a controller button when it’s in the vicinity of the robot.
It probably wouldn’t have been that great if that’s all that Blazing Birds was about. Enter the game-specific twists that make it much more playable. For instance, in addition to moving the robot with the Left Stick, you can use the Right Stick to tweak the direction in which the robot will hit the bird when it’s struck. There are also different shots that can be taken, depending on the button you press. For example, hitting the Right Trigger hits the bird hard, while the Left Trigger dinks a soft shot. Hitting the Left Bumper delivers a high-powered smash—provided the bird is above the smash line at the time.
The robot has pretty good range—combined with a small court and a bird that gets floaty the closer it gets to the end of its flight—makes it easy to get a majority of the shots that are thrown your way. All this put together makes Blazing Birds highly playable and can bring about some lengthy volleys between the sides.
One other twist brings even more classic video-game style into the action, which is the existence of power-ups. A circular icon moves around above the net between the players with a symbol that indicates what kind of power-up is available. The first player to hit the icon with the bird in the course of play earns that bonus, which enable special shots to be taken. For example, one power-up causes a struck bird to travel in a straight line toward the opponent’s side, but in the form of a large, green snake. Another one puts two warp clouds above the field of play, and if the opponent hits the bird into one cloud, it transports to the other cloud like in Portal, coming out the other side at the same angle and speed, which makes tracking it that much more of a challenge, especially if it was smashed.
I bought this yesterday and it is a good little game. I can see myself spending 15 minutes here and there working through the tournaments. The most disappointing is the lack of online multiplayer, that would've really made this a cracking title.
Really? Good job I didn't purchase yet, was very tempted but I would have been buying it mainly for online play. Lucky escape there!
Yeah, I kind of regret purchasing it now. After playing the demo I thought it would be a good multiplayer game, and I made the mistake of assuming that it would have online. Ah well, live and learn I suppose. It's not a bad game or anything, just limited by the AI.
I bought this yesterday and it is a good little game. I can see myself spending 15 minutes here and there working through the tournaments. The most disappointing is the lack of online multiplayer, that would've really made this a cracking title.
22-05-2009, 9:22 AM
Good job I didn't purchase yet, was very tempted but I would have been buying it mainly for online play. Lucky escape there!
E. & O.E.
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