When Falcon Heene aka Balloon Boy lifted off into the sky and consequently found himself all over the news channels, people the world over felt horrified for that little boy. Which made the discovery that it was all a hoax feel all the more disgusting – his parents had made us feel sorry for their son, when it was a publicity stunt all along!

Imagine, then, if someone tried to cash in on the hoax by releasing a game based on it. In the same way that you felt the Heene family had violated your emotions, Balloon Boy on Xbox Live Indie Games violates your time and money. There’s a slight addictive quality to it, but past that there’s nothing really to like about this game.

GAMEPLAY

Play consists of keeping the boy afloat using the left stick. Birds and helicopters come from the right-hand side of the screen, and if the boy or balloon touch these obstacles, you lose. There are also stormclouds above, and hills below – both of which cannot be touched.

This is the entire game. There are no more controls, or enemies to dodge, or clever power-ups, or any of those things you associate with gaming. The whole things reeks of cash-in, and I don’t like the smell.

Not only that, but it’s completely unfair too. The birds and helicopters spawn randomly, and sometimes it’s impossible to actually dodge them. Getting a highscore consists of being lucky with the enemy placement.

Having said that, it does make give the game a somewhat addictive element – because flights usually last less than a minute, I found myself trying over and over again to get a highscore with a lucky run. Still, I played for around fifteen minutes before I’d seen everything and gotten bored, so the slight addictive quality really doesn’t do much to save it.

The description for the game in the Xbox Live Marketplace even contains a lie – it states that players can “compete against the world with global high scores”, but this is not true – the leaderboard is local, and only shows your scores. Whether this is an intentional fabrication or not, it’s rather naughty.

STYLE

Balloon Boy is set as if you’re watching the action on the news. A bulletin ticker scrolls along the bottom, offering humorous news, while the rest of the interface includes a channel logo, a main headline and a stock exchange style scale which doubles up as your score.

It’s actually a pretty decent look, while the general graphical styling on the boy and his attackers isn’t too bad. Now and again, the paparazzi flash up on screen as a distraction, as too does a news reporter who babbles rubbish about your situation.

Every 20 seconds or so, the scene will cut out for a few seconds, before returning with a different backdrop and scenery. It works well in helping along the addictive qualities the game provides – seeing how many different backdrops you can witness before colliding with something is a good incentive.

STORY

There’s no story provided, although the game is based on a real-life hoax – namely, the Balloon Boy Hoax in which a family told police their child had been taking into the sky by a balloon, but later admitted that he was safe at home the whole time. If it pissed you off back then, it’s not going to do the game any favours now.

OTHER

Balloon Boy is well made, but doesn’t feature anything worth playing at all. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I played a game which had so little depth. There really is nothing to it at all, and not in a ‘it’s so simple, it’s fun’ sort of way – more in a ‘why did you even make this game’ train of thought.

As with the hoax that it’s based on, this game’s sole purpose is to make money out of nothing at all. Let’s rid the Xbox Live Indie Games channel of this type of crap.