Sometime in the next few days, developer Glogamer will be releasing its debut offering, Globall. And I'm pleased to be able to provide the first look at this wonderfully addicting game!

If Globall had to be placed in a particular category, I'd say it belongs to the same genre as games like Zuma and Podz because the overall idea is the same: you shoot balls of different colors at a chain of balls that moves around a track and try to destroy the chain before it reaches the end. Segments of the chain are destroyed when you create groups of at least three balls of the same color.

Despite the similarities to its predecessors, Globall breathes new life into this genre by taking a somewhat different approach. Specifically, while Zuma and Podz place the ballshooter in the center of the screen, giving the player a 360 degree shooting angle, in Globall your ballshooter is limited to moving horizontally across the bottom of the screen. This makes for a much more challenging game. And indeed, many of you who enjoyed Zuma but thought it was much too easy, will not be able to say the same for Globall. On the contrary, the levels in Globall are often very difficult to beat and will keep you busy for longer than you anticipate. Futhermore, there are a whopping 68 of them for you to overcome!

An especially nice addition is the way that the game progresses: when you begin a game, a map of the world is displayed. Each level represents a different country and every time you destroy a segment of the chain, part of the name of the country is filled in. Once the whole name is spelled out in its entireity you've completed the level and are returned to the main world map, where you move on to the next country. This ingenious device simultaneously gives the game a coherent feel and educates the player on countries from around the world and their capitals!

There are two main modes of play: normal and survival. Normal mode allows you to save your game while survival mode does not. Additionally, there are three levels of difficulty for each mode of play. This marks a substantial benefit over other games in the genre. For example, even Zuma's fans bemoaned its lack of more than one mode of play.

Globall also gives the player a healthy does of detailed statistics about gameplay after each level. And in addition to saving high scores for each mode, the game also saves independent high scores for each continent, a really nice added touch!

All the rest of the things that add to a game's appeal are also present. Namely, great sound effects, music, and graphics (each level has a different background pattern and color).

If all of this weren't enough, I'm fairly certain that Globall will cost significantly less than similar games!

As a beta tester for this game (how do you think I got the first look, after all?), I also wanted to add a word about the development process. I've participated in a fair amount of beta tests over the years and I have never seen a developer be quite so patient and concerned that everything be as perfect as possible before releasing the product, even if it meant having to completely redo parts of the game. The quality of the finished product in this case is a testament to both the developer and to the benefits of following this type of development model.

One last word of advice, for all of you who haven't had a chance to play Globall yet, I suggest you get a copy towards the end of the week, because I can almost guarantee you that if you start playing this game on a Monday, you're not going to have a very productive week at work!