![]() Of course catching itself comes into play here, too, and making a perfectly timed catch of an opponent's shot instantly super-charges the ball, giving you a hot rocket to serve right back into their faces. Pass it around a few times between your team - up to a maximum of six tiers of charge - and you've got yourself a venomous shot that's all but impossible to successfully catch. For every pass you make to a teammate you automatically gain a level of charge to the ball being passed around, meaning that when you fire it, it travels that little bit faster. Spinning and flipping by pressing 'A' or 'X' can be combined with 'ZR' for lob and curved shots that help your balls around obstacles and clicking in the right stick performs a fake throw, helping you to screw with an opponent's timings as they attempt to make a catch.įurther to all of this is passing between your crew, an element of the game that's being sorely underused at this early stage. ![]() The five Splatoon-esque levels currently available in Knockout City are all about verticality and environmental hazards, you see, and as such your 1950s greaser-style avatars can jump, spin, dodge, flip, sprint and even glide around arenas, giving you lots in the way of options as you duck and dive out of harm's way or get up close and personal with your opponents.ĭodging, by holding a direction and pressing 'Y', doubles up as a nifty way to deflect an incoming enemy shot and also serves as a means to tackle opponents, knocking them back several feet and opening up the possibility of chucking them down the nearest lift shaft or off a skyscraper for an instant kill and points on the board. ![]() Of course for those who want to excel - to form clans and climb the league leaderboards (once they go online) - there are layers here, with a surprising amount of depth to work with and lots of clever ways to turn the tide in your team's favour and emerge victorious as the true kings of pinging people right in the face. That's really all there is to it, and with that you're free to blast around the game's five arenas, chucking balls at skulls and racking up points for the win. Catching an enemy's attempt to nail you in return is as easy as watching out for a red indicator around the edges of your screen that means you're being targeted and then timing a press of 'ZL' to catch the ball as it arrives. By just walking into a ball here you'll grab it from its spawn point, holding in 'ZR' locks to your nearest enemy and releasing sees an auto-tracked shot make its way to your chosen target - you don't even need to aim. Picking up a ball and nailing an opponent or catching an incoming shot really couldn't be simpler though and that's all the info you really need to begin having some success. Jumping into Knockout City for the first time you'll be guided through an easy-to-follow tutorial that walks you through everything you need to know, from how to move around and throw and catch balls to more 'complex' stuff like lob shots, curveballs, perfect catches and team passing. It's clear that Velan Studios - the developer behind Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit - has thought long and hard about how to make this one accessible on a very basic level and the decisions they've made have paid off handsomely here.Ĭaptured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked) Getting started, having a measure of success and, most importantly, enjoying yourself in Knockout City really is as simple as picking up a dodgeball and throwing it. If you're the type of player who tends to shy away from online competitive action, not one for the constant deaths, steep learning curves, lengthy match times or complex meta of many of the currently popular squad-based offerings, this bright and breezy effort could well be something worth dipping your toes into. This is a quick, slick and colourful team-based arcade sports game that gets the basics right, builds on them with some neat tweaks and twists and serves up some excellent and addictive action as a result. It really needs to get that springy, rubbery, wince-inducing "thwack!" just right and, we're happy to report, Knockout City does just that. ![]() As seasoned dodgeball professionals over here at Nintendo Life, we're well aware that the most important aspect in creating a successful video game based on this king of sports is nailing the sound that a ball makes as it smashes powerfully into the face and/or body of your opponent.
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