Pig Eat Ball review for PC

Platform: PC
Publisher: INDIECN
Developer: Mommy’s Best Games
Medium: Digital
Players: 1
Online: Yes
ESRB: E10+

I have played many different types of games in my life, but really nothing could have prepared me for the strangeness that is Pig Eat Ball. It is a new game from the masterminds behind Serious Sam DD XXL and Shoot 1up, and to put it lightly, it’s crazy … and it might be kind of amazing.

The story is just as crazy as you might expect. King Cake is a ruler of a strange Space Station, and he wants to fins a husband for his Daughter Princess Bow. He creates a tournament of sorts where the winner gets to marry the Princess, but the Princess isn’t having any of that and disguises herself so she can enter the tournament so she can win. The object of the tournament is to beat the challenges scattered around the vast space station and collect pearls, as the player with the most pearls will win the tournament, although, playing as the princess, you aren’t competing with anyone else so you can complete the missions at your leisure. In between the missions, you can explore the wacky space station and interact with some of the more interesting residents. This is cool to find power-ups, other disguises and some other goodies that are hidden throughout the station.

The main gameplay is more loosely based on a timed Pac Man, as your goal is to eat the tennis balls scattered throughout a maze like area within a certain time limit. You have to navigate through eating all of the yellow balls while dodging enemies and obstacles. As you eat up the balls, your character will begin to get fatter, making it harder for you to pass through narrow doorways. In these situations, you have to physically throw-up the balls you’ve eaten to get thinner. After a few moments, the puke covered balls will turn back to normal and you can re-eat them. Eating a puke covered ball will make you sick, and you won’t be able to eat anything for a brief moment, and avoiding them is tricky sometimes. Puking balls can also stun some enemies and take out obstacles. Managing all of this all while being timed can be a bit of a chore, but it never feels like an impossible task. Some levels don’t have you eating, but smashing everything in site to break more objects than the enemies, there are even some boss battles in here that really need to be seen to be believed.

Control is fairly decent, but not without quirks. It works great 90% of the time, but sometimes fails to recognize the direction I want to go. This happened with different controllers too, as I original thought it was an issue on my end. It didn’t come up too often and really didn’t hinder the experience all that much. Graphics are very slightly reminiscent of an old Sega 32x game, with it’s simple overhead 3D style. Although simple in presentation, the colors are bright and everything is animated really well. There are a few glitches here and there, even some instances where I managed to pass through solid walls, but I’m sure future updates will take care of those. The music is a mix of nice, cheery tunes that fit the games overall aesthetic, while the sound effects range from silly to somewhat gross. The puking sound effect was a little to realistic for me at times, but I got used to it eventually.

With it’s unique story and presentation and over the top gross factor, Pig Eat Ball is somewhat of a hidden gem. Most players may pass right over this one but I do recommend at least taking a look at this one. I was skeptical at first, but once I started playing I was really liking what it had to offer. It does need a few updates for the sporadic control issues and to fix up some strange glitches, but it’s extremely playable and fun. Don’t let the name prevent you from playing this very unique title. This is one I’m happy to have in my Steam library.

Note: INDIECN provided us with a Pig Eat Ball Steam code for review purposes.

Grade: B+