Knock Out City was developed by an American indie studio called Velan studio as their first main game in the gaming industry. Prior to this, they collaborated with Ninento to release Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit.
The game was published by Electronic Arts (EA) and more specifically under theEA Originals label. EA original published many games in 2021 including the Lost in Random and ofcourse the Game of the year It Takes Two.
Knock Out City is a team based, cross platform sport game similar to Dodgeball. Upon it's release the game was heavily praised for managing to create a pleasant experience around the sport of Dodgeball, which at the time didn't have
enough video games around it or at least popular ones. Few months later, the game received Negative critisism by it's fanbase, as it was believed that a game which implies season pass should be free, basing this on Rocket League.
The game though is not expensive and it has been on many sales and deals such as Ps plus for playstation and Amazon prime for pc.
Gameplay
The game begins by placing the players in a small hub world where they can customize their brawler, use the shop to buy items, see that Season pass, train,do the trainning missions and select a game mode to procceed.
As the game is online it safe to assume that the gamemmodes available will always swap and intruduce new gamemodes. Based on the selections made the game will place the player in a team of either 2,3 players or 4 players.
For now lets go with the classic game mode.
The game places the team in one of it's many maps. The rules are simple, first team to ten is the official winner of the competition. BUT how can someone score a point? Each Brawler has a total of two hearts. If one opponent
gets hit by an upcomming ball they lose one of their two hearts. When both of their hearts are gone then the enemy gains a point. At the same time if a brawler falls of the map, thats an official point for the opposite team.
There are some efficient ways to get an instant KO however it comes with a risk of beeing hit.
Basic Gameplay
The player manuvers around in 3D maps filled with various of spaces to hide, get the high ground and have a blast. The players can walk and sprint to gain distance or cover distance. The player can collect a ball by moving towards the ball. With the possession of the ball the playes can
shoot the ball towards an enemy or pass it to a teammate. Charging the shot/ pass can be aquired by holding the appropriate button down. The longer it was charged the faster the ball will travel and with the same logic, the faster the button is release the slower the ball will travel. In order
to avoid the hit the players have three ways of Defence. First one is by moving behind a wall or closed space which will cause the ball to hit there instead of the player. The second way is by catching the upcomming ball byy pressing the defence button. An upcomming ball is indicated by
surrounding the screen with red whilst a white arrow showcases the location of the ball. The third and last (as of now) defend option is tackling the ball with the dash button.
When there is not ball around the area, a teammate can turn themselves into a ball by pressing the appropriate key. Hitting an enemy with a ball formed by a teammate is a quarantee kill. When charging a ball formed by a teammate, they form a bomb
that causes an explotion on the ground and it will most likely kill anyone with in the bombs radious. The risk of turning into a ball is that in the case of the enemy grapping the ball(player), they have appriximately 8 seconds before the balll player is freed, in which they can choose to hit the
enemy (teammate of the ball player) which will also count as a guarantee kill or simply throw the ball of the map if a cliff is nearby. The second drawback is that if they ball player turns into a bomp and misses they have around 2 seconds where they revonurable for an attack.
The players can fake a shot a by pressing a button, this can be used to mix the opponent and make them use their catch. There are buttons that are used to command teammates, to request for a pass or request someone to turn into a ball.
There is a jump button and a double jump When falling from high area the heroes have a glider which helps them manuver on air. There are two buttons that have their unique jump of sideway and upwards. However when being on the possession of a ball, these same buttons
can be used to shoot the ball with some weird spin. One will add a lob curve to the ball and the other will give a side curve to the ball which can be easily used to hit enemies from blind spots or from above. These two shots can also be used for further
mix ups. Last but not least the previously mentioned dash. Dash can be used as a deffensive mechanism. This can be used to tackle away upcomming balls which was mentioned prior and tackle an enemy. tackling an enemy who holds a ball will knock the enemy away and they will drop the ball for the
player to use againts them.
Special Balls
The games unique element is the addition of different balls to make each game and round unique. Once the players appear on the map a ball randomizer will select one of the balls (or plenty) These balls are:
Normal
These are the defaults ball that have no special ability
Cage Balls
Cage balls when succesfully thrown will trap the enemy in a cage ball, then if the player catches the ball they can either throw them on enemy and it will be a one shot seeing that its a human ball, or throw them of the map which is a guarantee death.
Multi Ball
Multi ball is a different ball that grants the player three balls instead of one. Each of the three balls are just normal
Sniper Ball
Sniper Ball is the type of ball that can travel the distance in a very short period of time. When charged the sniper ball can be used to excecute who ever is in the distance or in range in general. This ball cannot travel sideways
Moon Ball
The moon ball is very similar to the normal ball. However when holding the ball the player gets a zero gravity powerup, where they can jump to reach higher grounds. When striking an enemy they also get a zero gravity effect which launches them up high/
Bomb Ball
This ball once picked starts a timer that is said to explode when the timer reaches danger. An exploding bomb will cause who ever is near to lose one life no matter whose team they re in. If the enemy target catches the bomb they have time to throw it , unless the timer was near its end and if the enemy fails to catch the ball,
it will explode dispite the time
Soda Ball
Soda ball was the lastest addition to balls, once aimed for pass or shoot, it has its own timer wich detonated and created a bild effect on the screen where the players can see where they re headed
Gamemodes
The game offered a few game modes but the more it stayed the more it improved and added more to it. These game modes are :
Normal Dodgeball
Normal dodgeball is the normal game mode that goes up to 10 Kos.
Competitive Dodgeball
This is the same mode as normal Dodgeball, however wins and Loses cunts towards the player ranks
Diamond Dash
The game plays as normal dodgeball however eliminating players drop Diamonds that the players have to collect. First team to reach thirty
Coin dash
8 coins are shared between the two teams. The team that manages to captures all eight wins th round
Ball-Up
There are no balls and the teammates have to turn themselves into balls.
Elimination
The first team that knocks out the oponent gets a point. WHile the game is beeing played, the maps begins to shrink. Stepping out of the maps will result into slowly receiving damage.
Basketbrawl
Rings are scattered around the maps. Killing a player will turn them for a limited time into a ball that the players will have to capture and throw them through the rings.
1 vs 1
This is a game mode where a player will phase off againts another one
Final Thoughts
Over all this game is very interesting. The level design is fantastic with unique elements. Some maps have traps that will shoot the cage ball at any traspassing player, another map swaps environment every few seconds, furthermore there are maps
with small UFO platforms that allow the hero to levetate and summon a ball to them, while others have tubes that help the player scan the maps and teleport from point A to B. They re all tricky, unique and playfull. At the moment there is a decent amount
of maps however, by the time the video below was published and this page, there have been atleast 3 maps. It is expected that as the game continues to grow that more maps and even balls will be released within is life cycle. The music of the game is nice,
as the DJ announcer and the songs are really setting the mood. Each player can create or join a crew aka a guild and players can add friends from different consoles within the in game friendlist.
This is a video with my Honest review close to when i played the Game
