Do you dream of those days when you could throw coin after coin into the slot machines and never want to go home? Then KaleidoGames might have something for you. It is an arcade game with some sports. However, if you are not a sports fan, the platform areas are much more widespread than these sports.
At some point, someone woke up and thought, “What if we did Bubble Bobble, but with ping pong players shooting ping pong balls at monsters?” This particular idea never occurred to the game's alien invaders, who rely on hockey pucks or Tennis balls fed them as they attempted to conquer one continent at a time. That's the whole structure. The aliens are here and you choose a hero to save the world. All of these heroes play some kind of sport. We start as ice hockey players and gradually unlock new characters. They all work the same way: use your stick or stick to hit balls or pucks at the monsters.
In reality, there are only two buttons used in addition to running left or right, one for the projectile and one for jumping. You can fire as many shots as you want, and after hitting a monster a few times, it will turn into the character's sports ball and roll away, hoping to hit the other monsters to defeat them too. The only differences between the playable characters are their appearance and the fact that they have four different categories such as speed and strength, in which abilities differ. For example, Jimmy the table tennis player has three categories: speed is maximum, strength is minimum and requires more hits to defeat an opponent. But at the same time you're maximizing the speed at which you can get the next hit after the previous one, so it's a balancing act.
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In appearance, and I guess in idea, it's very similar to a game from the 1990s called Snow Bros. Two years ago a revised version was released for the Nintendo Switch called Snow Bros Special. Enemies appear on different platforms and you have to defeat them without taking damage as the player dies in a single hit. An arcade classic, but you don't necessarily have to have a handful of coins on hand to throw them into the machine. There are infinite retries on each route, which is particularly nice with the bosses. It may take a little trial and error to learn patterns and not die immediately. As you progress through the game, enemies will be equipped with new abilities, such as some that spray fire and others that spit poison. There is a wide variety of levels. The walkthrough mode, which serves as the game's main gameplay, features 112 different levels, all set in real-world locations. They range from the Lincoln statue in the USA to Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany. They mainly serve as wallpapers and have no impact on the game. Depending on how well you do on these missions, you'll earn between one and three stars on each playthrough, giving you a reason to play them again and try to get a better score.
For a more classic challenge, there's Arcade Mode, where you have to score as many points as possible. Imagine an arcade machine with Pac-Man or Donkey Kong. This score will reset to zero if you are forced to restart a level. If you want to test your skills online, there are leaderboards in the Chaos Mode game mode. This has 20 selected levels that are changed every ten days.
Without the right look, a game like this wouldn't work. Luckily, Slam and Roll has it. It's like something you would have played in an arcade back in the day. The monsters may not be very diverse, but they don't have to be. I like the idea of adding something new to the classic genre in the form of different sports, and if you want to play with a friend you can do so in local co-op mode.
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If you like games like Bubble Bobble and don't expect the whole concept to be turned on its head, Slam and Roll might be worth a try. It's a classic arcade game, nothing more, nothing less.
