Platform: GameCube

Genre: Military Pinball

Publisher: Nintendo

Developer: VIVARIUM, Inc.

ETA: 2005

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Odama

At E3, Odama ranked high on my “What the hell?” list of games that made me scratch my head. Odama is in a class and genre by itself: Military Pinball. No doubt about, I can count the number of military pinball games on one hand – one finger in fact.

Here’s the official line from Nintendo on this unique title:

Mix all the intensity of classic pinball with the sights, sounds and savagery of war and what do you get? Odama – the first pinball game that throws you into the midst of mighty clashes between armies on boards laid out like chaotic battlefields.

Charge! Fire the giant pinball known as the Odama (tentative name) into the fray and use the flippers to send it crashing over battalions and into troop barracks. As you collect prisoners of war, they'll fight for your side, but be careful not to crush your own troops.

Call for reinforcements! Your men will automatically try their best to dam rivers, liberate extra flippers and clear the way to the enemy's gate. If another player joins your game, though, they can control where the troops go and even help them dodge the Odama.

Game Storyline: Challenge a general's army in battles set during the period of Japanese feudal wars as you send a giant pinball into the mix.

How to progress through the game: Use the flippers to send a giant pinball called the Odama to destroy the enemy's barracks and turrets. Hit enemy soldiers with

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the ball to make them join your ranks, and as your army liberates more of the screen, you'll be able to assault the gate and move on to the next level.

Depending on the orders you give, your soldiers can become tired or even lose confidence in your leadership skills and become complacent. Player 2 can use the DK Bongo controllers, hitting them to get the soldiers' attention and get them moving faster than before. If Player 2 does that, however, the soldiers' confidence in Player 1 declines.

Special powers/weapons/moves/features: By powering up your Odama, you can capture prisoners of war by running them over with the ball. You can then release them as your own troops to turn the tides of war. A second player can also help you out by controlling your troops instead of allowing them to make their own battlefield decisions.

So, not only is Odama a military pinball game but a military pinball game that uses the Donkey Kong bongo drums (for use with Donkey Kong Jungle Beat and one of the weirdest peripherals I saw at E3). It’s such a strange concept that it just might work. Sometimes, you look at a game and just know it’ll crash and burn. But the way Nintendo and Vivarium are mixing genres Odama has the potential to attract a variety of gamers, even with its admittedly quirky premise.

And Odama is probably the first real-time strategy game that really makes sense for a console. There have been console real-time strategy games before, but for whatever reason (mainly lack of keyboard and mouse) they have failed to become popular as a genre. Who would have thought that mixing it with pinball might be the answer?

Odama doesn’t have a firm release date, but it is scheduled for sometime in 2005.

- Omni

(August 7, 2004)