Balance

Balance is thoroughly average and obscure German action game from Kingsoft.

The review-style description at MobyGames: "This German game of dexterity delivers what the title promises. Balance is a lesson in applied gravity: guide a ball to one or more targets by tilting the plane it sits on, much like in those little plastic toys that drive you insane. A simple premise made challenging by tricky, maze-like level layouts that go beyond the "A to B" routine, but require you to touch a certain number of target tiles in no particular order. You must reach all targets in limited time, or else you have to start over. If the ball falls off the edge, one of ten lives is lost. Special fields such as jumpers, accelerators or crumbling tiles test your reflexes; some levels even rotate.

Balance uses vector graphics to draw flat, untextured fields on which the ball rolls. The plane is tilted with the mouse. Every few levels, you get a password to jump directly to that map. Even so, Balance is extremely difficult and only recommended for players with a lot of patience."

Balance is an interesting premise that turns out to be not much fun, due to extreme difficulty and repetitive gameplay. Stick to Marble Madness and forget about this rare, marginal underdog.

Big thanks to Chris who kindly sent us not only the game, but also his own translation of the German manual into English, as well as copy protection answers. Needless to say, the game is in German, but there isn't all that much text in the game - and you will likely delete the download in frustration before seeing a lot of text anyway ;)

Review By HOTUD