BaboViolent2 is a strictly multiplayer game. It does not even have bots. This leaves you with only one way to play, and that is through the internet or LAN. It would have been nice to see an inclusion of bots by this release, but those with internet connections can deal with it. Those without a decent connection should probably not bother with BaboViolent2. For obvious reasons. It's also worth noting that the community is not especially massive, with only a few servers seeing activity at any one time.

The graphics are stunningly good for a freeware game. They are full 3D, and include special effects such as shadows, reflections, and even weather. It's no slouch, and intense games can get pretty busy with all the explosions and visual effects going off. The sounds fit, and the game plays Lamb of God as the music, so if you aren't a fan of metal, you might want to turn it off and play something else in an external browser.

BaboViolent2 controls and plays like every other top-down shooter. You move around with the keyboard, and you shoot by aiming with the mouse. You can move in a direction different to the one you are shooting, and there is a variety of weapons, items, and maps for you to play with. Standard stuff. In fact, it's this general balance and standard nature that makes BaboViolent2 so endearing. The game is entirely generic, with the capability to pick up and play at any time, anywhere.

First come the weapons. The weapons are your standard assortment of machineguns, shotguns, laser cannons, and other such technology to blow your opponent away with. The unique part of it comes in the balancing and how they attach to you. The balancing is superb, with larger, more nasty-looking weapons not conferring an especially large bonus over those using the more normal weapons. Reload time, damage, spread, and several other factors help keep every weapon useful. The weapons are attached to the player via a harness, which rotates along the ball as you aim, making the gun appear at a tangent off of the player. The coolest part about this is that you can aim around corners due to the nature of aiming, making yourself immune to direct harm.

Items are important as well. Every Babo comes with two items: grenades and molotovs. Grenades are bouncy explosive beasts with quick reload times and the ability to go over obstacles. They are incredibly useful for clearing out bad guys from behind cover. Molotovs explode upon touching the ground, but leave a patch of fire which will rapidly kill any Babo that rolls over it. There are also three more items: a shield that reduces all damage, spikes which instantly kill anything next to the player, and a miniature nuke that causes the player to self-destruct. Each of them serve their purposes well, but are relatively useless.

The most interesting aspect of BaboViolent2 is the physics of the balls. If you can imagine playing Quake as the marble from Marble Madness, you have an idea of how the physics work. You roll around and must utilize momentum to successfully navigate. Some weapons even push you back and cause you to roll, allowing you to create interesting situations, such as retreating while using your gun to propel yourself even faster. Unfortunately, there's no ramps to higher ground or jumps or otherwise pseudo-3D terrain of any kind, even though everything is rendered in 3D.

BaboViolent2 comes with a map editor, which is effective but limited. You can only place so many blocks, and you have to fit within a certain theme. You can also place the flags, spawns, and other such important game objects as well. The editor uses a grid system, and allows for dynamic editing of the map size through the addition of rows or columns. It's limited, but something is better than nothing, and there are a bevy of good maps out there for multiplayer action.

BaboViolent2 is not without problems, naturally. It's balanced well but is, for lack of a better word, bland. The weapons, graphics, and gameplay all come together well, but not in especially memorable ways. There's also a lack of variety in the maps, and some of the guns feel way to similar to one another. There is no real way to create new models, although you can create new skins for your character if you so wish. It's held back slightly, as if there's that capability to be heavily customized, but it just has not been embraced yet.

BaboViolent2 is a solid freeware game that morphed into something more. It is certainly not a classic, but it is not bad by any means. It succeeds at what it set out to do, is fun for the player, and offers a decent amount of customization and variety, even if it does feel held back by its own design choices. You can download BaboViolent2 from the developer's website for PC. It does not appear to have any other platforms available. If this is your bag, you might check out the Babo Invasion demo for the retail release of the sequel.

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