Ballblazer Champions is an action/sports video game released for Sony's PlayStation console. It was developed by Factor 5 and published by LucasArts in North America, and CTO SpA in Europe. It was released on March 31, 1997 in North America and in October 1997 in Europe. It is a remake of the 1984 video game Ballblazer that was released for the Commodore 64 and Atari 800 computers. The game takes place on an asteroid where an intergalactic BallBlazer competition is taking place, featuring creatures coming from throughout the galaxy. Players travel around a rink in spaceships, called "rotofoils", consisting of various weaponry, similar to the 1975 film Rollerball. The object is to score goals by moving glowing balls with the rotofoil.[3] At the same time, opponents use their weapons to prevent goals from being scored.[4]
The game received mixed ratings from reviewers. Adam Douglas from IGN rated the game with a 6 out of 10, saying that it "offers a nostalgic update" but tells everyone else to "stick to normal sports". Trent Ward from GameSpot gave the game an 86 out of 100, praising the game for its graphics and feel and adding that "it's obvious that LucasArts has devoted some serious time to making a conversion title that takes full advantage of the PlayStation high-speed graphics engine". He adds that the play controls take a little getting used to, while the game's sound is "solid, but never really inspired". Ward's biggest praise about the game was with the multiplayer mode, which he says adds to the game's replay value.[4] The game was named the Best Multi-Player Game of the Year in PSExtreme Magazine's 1997 Extreme Awards. Other reviews, such as from Game Players and Edge magazines, criticized the gameplay, which they say has not updated from the 1985 version of Ballblazer, giving the game ratings of 69 and 60 out of 100, respectively.
