Faceball 2000 stands as a bizarre technical anomaly in the Super Nintendo library, arriving as a port of the Atari ST’s MIDI Maze. Eschewing the gritty violence typically associated with the first-person shooter genre, the game tasks players with hunting down sentient, floating smiley faces within stark, neon-lit corridors. While the SNES was never designed for 3D raycasting, Bullet-Proof Software managed to squeeze a functional, albeit slow, engine out of the stock hardware without the assistance of a Super FX chip, making it a landmark achievement in software-side optimization.
The gameplay is divided between the combat-focused Arena mode and the puzzle-oriented Cyberzone, offering a surprising amount of variety for such a primitive engine. Players can choose from various "Smidgens" with different attributes, navigating maze-like levels that feel like a digital fever dream. The frame rate is undeniably chugging by modern standards, and the lack of floor or ceiling textures creates a claustrophobic atmosphere, yet there is a rhythmic satisfaction to be found in its simplistic hide-and-seek mechanics and non-lethal "tagging" gameplay.
Despite its visual limitations, the game shines through its eccentric personality and an earworm-inducing techno soundtrack that perfectly captures the early 90s aesthetic. It is a title that rewards patience, as the strategic depth of its hide-and-shoot combat reveals itself once the player adjusts to the tank-like controls and the minimal draw distance. While it may not rival the high-octane thrills of contemporaries like Wolfenstein 3D, Faceball 2000 remains a compelling curiosity for collectors who appreciate the system's more experimental efforts to push hardware boundaries.
