Stikbold! A Dodgeball Adventure – Game Swing/Curve Digital – PS4/Xbox One/PC – 04.01.16 — $9.99
I was hesitant to enjoy “Stikbold!” because the word “dodgeball” implies sports, and sports games are the worst. I reluctantly created a new game, cynically stereotyping the block-headed characters as “Minecraft” ripoffs as I mocked the bright colors and disco music that poured out of my television. You can imagine my surprise when I spent the next few hours having a total blast.
The phrase “you’ve never seen anything like this” can be dangerous to throw around, but I think it applies here. Unless you can truthfully say, “Yeah, I’ve seen a game about two professional Danish athletes who have to play dodgeball against hippies and pirates in order to save a beautiful colleague,” then you’ve never seen anything like this. The aforementioned pros are Björn and Jerome, two dodgeball players that are reeling after taking second place for the first time in their careers. After getting reamed by their coach, Björn’s crush gets abducted by a dude in a devil suit, and the two teammates begin their epic journey.
Teamwork is the name of the game in “Stikbold!” Whether you’re playing solo with an AI teammate or playing co-op with someone else, it’s not a game that you can win on your own. Enemy AI is surprisingly agile—by the 5th level or so it starts getting really hard to peg your opponents with dodgeball fury. Luckily, different arenas have different environmental aids that can be used to cheat a little bit. I was a big fan of one particular match against a salty sea captain in which anti-whaling activists jumped aboard. They ended up functioning like free agents, throwing dodgeballs at whoever got in their way. Success in a given match can be achieved with a balanced mix of reflexes and team-based strategy, but the different arenas often throw out weird obstacles that require quick adaptation as well.
Atmospherically, “Stikbold!” feels like a Scandinavian drug trip. It’s extremely bright and colorful, and all of the dialogue is spoken in Danish (I think) with English subtitles. Coupled with the disco soundtrack, the dodgeball premise becomes all the more surreal. I’m not the biggest fan of the blocky characters and graphics, but the developers have managed to give them all diverse personalities—I was particularly fond of Miguel Cigar, a legendary lifeguard who stood between me and the inflatable whale that I needed to attack an offshore oil drilling platform.
Multiplayer games rank just a little bit higher than sports games do in my book, but this is one that I could definitely get behind. It offers local multiplayer, and the further you progress in story mode, the more multiplayer characters that you unlock. Assembling a group of friends to throw dodgeballs, crabs and other junk at one another for fortune and glory isn’t a bad way to spend a Friday night.