First, a little history. When PlayBrains approached Microsoft to get their title, Babo: Invasion, published, it was a sequel to the freeware shooter BaboViolent 2. Microsoft liked the game, but had one question: could the characters be Madballs? PlayBrains looked at their game and thought, "Why not?", and got together with American Greetings to blend together their shooter with the forgotten franchise. Thankfully, although its parts might not be all that relevant in today's world, Madballs in Babo: Invasion manages to be an entertaining shooter, and a welcome addition to the Xbox Live Arcade.

Yes, the Madballs game is a shooter. Besides the characters being obviously inspired by the 80's toys, very little about the game has anything to do with Madballs. It's like Super Mario Bros. 2, where Nintendo inserted their characters into an already finished title. Granted, it would be pretty hard to build something around squishy rubber balls. Instead, the gameplay straps weapons to the rolling characters to make it a third-person run-and-gun bullet-fest.