Icebreakers
Game Category: Action - Third Person, Arcade, Sports, Kids
Developer / Distributor: Xibalba Studios
Release Date: 5 Apr 2011
Rating: ESRB - Everyone

Introduction
Independent game developer Xibalba Studios (based in Mexico) have come up with perhaps the coolest concept for a 3D arena vehicular sport game - Icebreakers!

Come and try out this winter sport game that has you driving ice sleds that leave behind trails of ice. These fancy rides are equipped with a powerful water tank that shoots a powerful stream of water, propelling the sled forward, while leaving behind an icy wall when the water freezes. You will need to outsmart your enemies and get them to run headlong into the ice trails you leave behind. Do this often enough and they'll be knocked out of the game for that precious few seconds to give you the needed advantage to win a match.

Icebreakers is truly a light-hearted fun game that will appeal to kids of all ages. There's even a Flash version (2D top down version only) of Icebreakers for you to get into the spirit of things. Come on now, give this indie game a try!

The coolest sports game in town

Game Play
Icebreakers may be a game targeted at kids from 5 to 12; but if you ask me, it's more like for kids from 5 to 92 [Editor: We're warming up for Christmas]. You can obviously tell this from the moment you see the main menu screen load up. It features six (out of eight) of the cute cartoon characters you control in the game.

The game has a single player mode where you can choose to play a single match or to enter Story mode. Story mode starts off with a comic strip that tells how each of the game's characters come together and take part in the sport of Icebreakers.

That's Billy the Kid in green

Multiplayer comes with the standard choice of playing on a Local Area Network or the Internet. There was no one playing on the Internet during the review, so we hope more people can give this game a chance, as the game play does rock.

Next up on the main menu are a Learn How to Play and Achievements section. You can take a quick look at the former to see how each of the five game modes are played, while the latter shows you a handful of achievements waiting for you to unlock them.

My achievements so far

There are eight characters available for you to choose whenever you start a game; however, two of these are locked at the start. Each character comes with his own customized ice sled that sports a unique ability:

• Adrian is a whiz kid and inventor. His sled is equipped with a boxing glove that can destroy ice trails.
• Ashley is a big fan of the local snowboard champion. Her sled uses a salt bomb that dissolves ice trails.
• Billy loves speed and danger; he may also love causing trouble, but I think deep down he's really a nice chap. His sled shoots out a fireball.
• Bones sings for the local band and has a secret crush on Ashley. His sled has a shield that protects him from ice trails.

Who shall you choose?

• Enrique just wants everyone to know he's not a rich spoilt brat. A little fender bender with his sled makes him dream up the game of Icebreakers. His sled shoots a laser beam.
• Hannah is Adrian's best friend, a soccer wannabe fanatic and test subject for Adrian. Her sled can jump over ice trails.

There are two other abilities: Your sled also has a boost power, and your character is able to throw snow balls at other players. First the former ability - the boost power makes your sled move at quite a fast speed, but will drain your boost bar quite fast. Collect turbo boost power-ups found on the map to help you to boost again. The snow ball will obscure the vision of other players, so they can't see where they're driving their sled. You can collect other power-ups on the arena too - like replenishing your life bar, snow balls, or sled ability.

Stop throwing snow balls at me!

Icebreakers comes with 5 game modes with different rules and objectives. Having tried all of them, we found them to be equally fun although we do have our own personal favourites.

• Battle Royale: This is a typical free-for-all where the player with the highest score at the end of the time limit wins.
• King of the Apple: Players will have to grab (by driving over it) an apple that appears somewhere on the map. The player who holds on to it the longest at the end of the time limit wins.
• Ring Hunt: There are a number of ring locations on the map. One of these locations will be randomly activated for each player; collecting the ring activates the next random location, and so on. The player who collects the most number of rings by the time limit wins.
• Capture the Monkey: This mode is just like King of the Apple mode. Only thing the "apple" is an agile monkey who will be running around on the map trying to escape the players. If another player catches the monkey, you can then try to steal the monkey by knocking that player out with your ice trail.

This monkey is really naughty

• Snake Trail: If you have played the classic snake game before, then you will appreciate the fact that your ice trail will get longer and longer with each apple (also see King of the Apple above) you pick up. It gets very frantic near the end of the time limit because everyone's trail will be long and winding. You have to use your character ability or try and swerve through narrow passages avoiding ice trails.

Icebreakers comes with eleven 3D arenas that look very lively indeed. Two of these need to be unlocked by playing at a higher difficulty levels.

Each arena contains interesting static objects like trees, buildings, statues, and depending on the theme - animated roller coasters, carousels, ferris wheels, a viking ship, cookies, cupcakes, crystal clear sweets, ice sculptures, lamp posts, fences, whales, and even water ponds that will destroy your sled and cause you to materialize at a random start point in the arena.

Using my boost power to grab that apple

Graphics
The 3D characters employ a cute cartoon style; there's no doubt that these kids ooze a certain charm when you see their AI likeness taking to a match with much aplomb. The levels as previously mentioned are beautifully done. You can even see cool reflections and waves in the ice and water, and the weather effects are a nice touch indeed. The variety in the levels is quite good although there could have been more ramps added to make some of these arenas even greater fun. The presentation of the HUD is very clear and easily read.

Audio
The music is lively and the tempo is generally upbeat. The music also tends to be dynamic during gameplay (for example, depending on whether you have the monkey or not). The menu sound effects are functional; couple it with the cool sound effects of the power-ups and sled unique abilities, and you'll have an enriching experience with headphones or surround speakers. There were no voice-overs in the game.

Pros:

• This is an exciting and fun action arcade arena style game of a fictitious snow sporting event.
• The graphics is very good - with lovely ambient particle effects (snow), surface reflections, and motion blur; this is one attractive game.
• Some of the arena designs are very good.
• We absolutely dig the snow effects and enjoy the short moments of flying through the air after hitting the ramps.

Enter the Icebreakers competition

• There are only five keys to remember: left and right arrow keys to steer, up arrow key for boost (hold it for as long as you like), space bar for activating the sled special ability, and the W key for chucking a snowball at a targeted player. The rest are optional - like looking left (A), right (D), and behind (S); or changing your camera zoom (C).
• The characters and general gameplay approach is well suited for kids, although adults will appreciate the game too.

Setting up a single player game

Cons:

• Easy mode is really easy-peasy! The only challenge for adults would be Hard mode.
• You can't configure match parameters before you begin (like adjusting the time limit, or setting the AI of the monkey, or adjusting the number of rings appearing on the map, etc.).
• There could have been a couple more arenas added to greatly improve the value of the game.
• A purely racing mode around an icy track seems to be missing; Icebreakers could have done superbly in this department.
• There weren't enough achievements.
• The story in story mode is a letdown - you could also say it's almost non-existent other than the starting comic strips you see.
• Multiplayer is not set up for team based play.
• There aren't enough unlockables - you only get two new players and arenas.

Only third place

Conclusion
Despite all the cons listed in the previous section (which seem to be actually asking for more gameplay features), we thought that this was a very good effort by an independent studio. In fact, Xibalba Studios' Icebreakers was the winner of the Intel Game Demo Challenge: Level Up 2010 for Best Character Design and 2nd Place for Best Game on a Laptop; you can't help but root for this game.

Icebreakers will go down well with kids, and you can even go split screen (for up to four players) if you have controllers plugged into your PC.

What can we say, but this would make another attractively cool present for Christmas as well. Get yourself a copy today!

A winner all the way!

Daily PC Game Review Score: 7.5 / 10