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Preview  Odama
- By Lander Clinton


Odama is a game Nintendo showed at last year's E3, but unfortunately I didn't get a chance to play. I say unfortunately because it's really cool.

The basic gameplay is pinball. You're playing pinball over the battlefields of feudal Japan, rolling a giant ball, called the Odama, over your troops and over enemy troops (hint: it's best to hit enemy troops).

The enemy troops are trying to attack your flippers, and if they succeed you can't move your flippers for a few seconds, which could cost you a ball. Send in your troops to counter them. The enemy also tries to attack to of your men who carry a giant bell from your side of the battlefield to theirs. When they reach the other side, you win.

The cool addition to the game this year is the use of the GameCube microphone, which works perfectly, even in the noise that is E3. You learn new commands as you play the game, and to give a command, hold down the X button and speak into the mic (mounted on the GCN controller so you don't need to hold both). "More men" sends more men, "charge!" tells your main soldiers to advance, while "go," "right," "left," and "wait," orders the guys carrying the giant bell to do what you say.

If you hit the bell with the Odama, a massive sound wave will knock out everyone on screen temporarily, except for the guys carrying the bell. They apparently went deaf a long time ago.

You can collect enemy troops as your own by getting a power-up for the Odama and then rolling it into them.

A great use of the pinball style of hitting the same spot more than once was illustrated in the following scenario:

A river separated the two halves of the battlefield with no bridge to cross. Smashing the ball into the floodgate closed off the flow of the river and allowed anyone to cross, but if you tell your men to wait and hold the line, the enemy troops go into the river bed to fight you. Then you can hit the floodgate again and release the river and drown out your enemies. Once their dead, close the river again and proceed across.

I look forward to Odama and so should you.

- 5.20.2005