#IDARB (Xbox One) Review

By Noah Fatale 04.09.2016

Review for #IDARB on Xbox One

#IDARB started as a small joke tweet by Mika Mika (@MikeJMika) on January 3rd, 2014, in which he tweeted a photo of a small red box and some platforms, with the caption, "Where to go with this? I've started a new project; it draws a red box. Thinking platformer. #helpmedev." Almost immediately after Tim Schafer, the cofounder and creative director of indie company Double Fine tweeted, "I think the red box needs to make a critical choice, and the narrative flows from there" to his 350,000+ followers, ideas started flowing in, some serious, others not so much. From here, #IDARB was born. It became a full-fledged game complete with Twitter and Twitch integration and online multiplayer.

In terms of general gameplay, #IDARB is a very innovative game. It starts off as a simple football match, with two teams trying to shoot a ball into the opposite team's goal. However, it soon becomes a crazy, all-out brawl with no real rules except to win by all means necessary. One aspect that is really unique is the Twitter and Twitch tie-in. The game has an option to scan the Twitch chat of a chosen stream for "hashbombs," meant to spice the game up a bit, such as #ricky, in which the popular internet meme "Rick Roll" dances across the screen, and #bomb, where the ball is turned into a bomb, sending anyone caught in the blast to the penalty box. There are plenty more, and the easiest way to find them all is to play the game and encounter them as they come. However, once they're all seen, the game sort of loses its wondrous lustre, and it becomes a standard soccer game with the occasional twist on the match.

Screenshot for #IDARB on Xbox One

There isn't much to say about graphics and sound, as #IDARB takes the form of a classic 8-bit arcade platformer, even going so far as to put the all-too-well-remembered, "Winners Don't Use Drugs" screen at the beginning. The sounds reflect this, being the sort of low quality, hard-to-make-out voices that would be heard in arcade cabinets such as Mortal Kombat and Pole Position. It really brings back some memories of being in the arcade as a kid, playing games with friends.

#IDARB implements a cool feature, which is the ability to create custom characters. With this, the player draws pixel art of whichever character they want to use, and can put those characters on a team, complete with music and a logo that they can make in the same way. This provides a unique experience tailored to whatever the player is looking for. There's even a "Trading Post" feature where the player can trade characters, logos, and songs with their friends. If a Kinect is owned, QR codes of various songs and characters can be scanned for an easier customised game.

Screenshot for #IDARB on Xbox One

Cubed3 Rating

7/10
Rated 7 out of 10

Very Good - Bronze Award

Rated 7 out of 10

All in all, #IDARB is a very fun game with an original concept and very unique features. It implements all of these features very well, and even adds a nice comedic aspect to the whole thing. However, the gameplay becomes slightly stale after a bit, with not much variety after it's all been seen. This game is recommended for anyone who has some friends who'd like to come over for a game night, as it is much more fun with multiple players instead of just one. It's not recommended to buy this if all that is going to be done with it is passing the time on a boring night.

Developer

Other Ocean Interactive

Publisher

Other Ocean

Genre

Action

Players

1

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  7/10

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  0 (0 Votes)

European release date Out now   North America release date Out now   Japan release date Out now   Australian release date Out now   

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