Basic plot remained the same: you control a faction of feudal Japanese soldiers in possession of the Odama: a giant mystical stone ball that you can fire around like a pinball to – in the parlance of those simple, ancient times, “pwn thine foes”. Gameplay mechanics have changed slightly however. The Odama no longer converts the enemy troops it touches to your side, rather more realistically smashes them to hell and gone as any normal giant stone ball would do. Another new trick is that as the Odama rolls around, it can smash open buildings on the battlefield and reveal burgers, of all things. Rolling the Odama through the burgers will collect and store them on your side, to be launched into battle as distractions. When fired onto the battleground, the enemy troops will swarm and attack the burgers, leaving your gates and home base alone for a time.

When I saw the burger concept, I began developing my theory of E3 game evolution. Remember Geist? In 2003, it was this little concept game that had all of two stations in Nintendo’s booth. Really interesting idea, but not much more. In 2004, it was expanded, with new experimental gameplay concepts. (…friggin’ dog food.) This year, the two were somewhat reconciled to make quite a good-looking game. This is the same path I see Odama taking thus far. If you told me last year that hamburgers were going to play a notable role in a feudal Japan-themed military pinball game, I’d’ve been forced to call the cops. Right now, Odama is tentatively scheduled for a release date sometime in 2005. I’m not certain that enough development will be done on it to merit holding it out of stores until after E3 2006, I do believe that a similar development reconciliation will be performed between the builds of this year and last year.

Mike Twomey