If you've ever played games like Marble Madness or Mercury, then you'll already have an idea of what Switchball is like. Guide a ball through a level from start to exit without falling off the edge of the track and into oblivion. The premise might not be all that original, but that shouldn't dissuade you from considering downloading the game to your 360's hard drive. Switchball has a couple of things going for it that make it an enjoyable puzzle game: excellent puzzle design and a pretty impressive physics engine.

The game's title comes from the need for you to switch balls to solve the game's puzzles. For example, there's a heavy ball that can bowl through obstacles on the path and an air ball that can be pushed aloft by gusts of air. You not only have to choose the right ball to solve the puzzles, but you need to make sure that you don't choose the wrong ball either. Try to cross a fabric bridge with the heavy and it will tear it in two and go plunging through the rip. It may seem that it would be obvious which ball was needed in each situation. In the early puzzles this is the case, but the game is just trying to lull you into a false sense of security. As you make your way through the game the puzzles get more challenging and could even be called devious, and I mean that in a good way.

One of the interesting aspects of the game is that it does a pretty impressive job of modeling real-world physics. I'm pretty certain it's the most realistic physics engine that's ever appeared in a puzzle game. The ball moves realistically and you can feel the weight of your current ball's affect on its momentum. When you push around obstacles they move and fall realistically, so you need to do more than bump into them - you'll need to be moving with the right speed and hit them at the proper angle. I felt that this gave the game an interesting and unique aspect, and I liked the fact that there was a little dexterous challenge added to the intellectual one. However, I can see some purely cerebral puzzle fans finding this to be a bit frustrating, although I wonder how many of them would actually go out and buy an Xbox 360 in the first place.

Switchball includes the inevitable multiplayer modes that seem to be a requirement of all Xbox Live Arcade games. There are four multiplayer levels which can be played as a race with up to eight players or as a co-op challenge. The race mode can be enjoyable enough, but it's basically a shoving match with players trying to knock each other off-track. The co-op puzzles are challenging and interesting enough to warrant at least one play through. In short, the multiplayer modes are not something I'd buy the game for, but they are a pleasant surprise considering that we're taking about a puzzle game here.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 84%. Switchball is a nice blend of cerebral and manual challenge, and is a nice switch from your usual puzzle fare.