Foosball is often left on the sidelines of both the sports and party genres of gaming. The titles can be overly simple or miss the party atmosphere the cute football tables have to offer. Pimbolas aims to change that by bringing in skill and chaos to create a great party foosball game that you can learn in an instant and master over hours.
Pimbolas is best played in 1v1 or 2v2 modes, and if you play in 1v1, the game has a unique control scheme. Each player controls two skewers of foosball players, and the controller is split in half, meaning you can move and twist them independently of each other. Your players can kick, spin-kick, and control the ball. Control is a timed magnet that will draw a ball to the player if they are the nearest player to it, and then they can kick it forward upon release. The more your team kicks the ball, a power meter will charge up, and once full, it can unleash a special kick attack. This attack will score an instant goal if the opposing side cannot use the jump button to block the flying ball. Reflexes must be sharp to counter the special ability, but it can be done.
With these controls and abilities, Pimbolas already outclasses many foosball games, but what makes the game better is its variety of events. There are over 20 balls that can be unlocked in arcade mode, each with its own properties and physics. Some are sports-related, like the bouncy basketball or the no-air hockey ball. Others are more arcade party-influenced, like a bubble ball that traps one of your players in a bubble until they are kicked out of it and replaced by another. A crab ball pincers a player, removing them from the round for a few seconds. Some balls mix both sides of the spectrum, like the planet ball that floats around the pitch like a dizzy egg. These are combined with power-ups you can collect as you kick the ball around. My favourite is the 2x or 3x multiball, as the game turns into a button-mashing panic. Other power-ups make the balls huge or the goals small. Again, there’s over a dozen to play with.
Unlocking them, and the large variety of indie game characters you can choose from, must be done in the arcade mode. Players have 6 lives to win 3 games, and if you do that, you’ll unlock associated balls and power-ups to use in freeplay and tournament mode. Characters are unlocked by totalling up the score difference over multiple matches between you and the AI. Win 6-3, you’ll score 3 points, and maybe unlock one of the three characters. It is a twist on the usual unlocking mechanics and means you’ll need to replay arcade several times to get everything.
My only mild critique of Pimbolas comes from the arenas. They are all the same shape and size… small. Whilst this keeps things contained, it’d have been nice to make each arena more than window dressing with some very occasional gravity differences. It does keep Pimbolas flowing and moving, though, as up to 4 players can play together (each taking a single skewer). Customisation is key. If you don’t want a ball type or power-up, you can turn them off individually. The AI has 5 difficulty settings, with Pro and Legend being mighty challenging. Even the dynamic camera can be switched to static if, like me, you ran into a few perspective issues. I love that you can play Pimbolas your way.
Fast, fun, chaotic, and just about on the right side of feeling slightly out of control, Pimbolas is my favourite foosball game for donkeys of years. It strikes the right balance of party chaos and skill to learn and master. Add it to your local multiplayer rotation.
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