Watch a match of # IDARB , a 2D competitive multiplayer game for Xbox One, and nobody would blame you for feeling bewildered. It’s fast-paced, chaotic, and often incomprehensible, but the winning team didn’t get to the top of the leaderboard by chance. Part combo-based arcade game, part hockey, part basketball, and part Super Smash Bros., #IDARB is an intelligent, technical, and highly enjoyable little eSport. Just make sure you have a good number of players, or your teams will end up lopsided, bored, or both.

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#IDARB moves fast, and with two teams of two, matches are chaotic and ripe with opportunity for memorable plays. With four players on each team, #IDARB is borderline impossible to keep up with -- which makes playmakers feel all the better when a plan comes together. Setting up those big moments earns teams more points, too, and that’s the hook.Accuracy and precision takes skill, since you both move and aim with the left stick, and firing off a high-speed shot (or missing a pass) could cause the ball to bounce off the edges of the opponents’ net and back into your defensive zone. Everything about #IDARB relies on your reflexive, instant reactions to always-unpredictable events. Scoring is hard, but because #IDARB is so responsive and skill-centric, it makes getting a goal all the more rewarding -- and it gets even better as the player count increases.Passing the ball to an airborne ally creates a combo multiplier that pays off with more points when they score, particularly if they’re farther away from the goal -- the farther you are, the more points you earn. The satisfaction of having a risky play send your score soaring over an opponent’s keeps both teams striving to make big moves. When a massive play failed, our room full of local players burst into hysterical screaming -- one side relieved, the other horrified, both ecstatic for their next opportunity.A team of two is enough to get in position, pass the ball between players, and score goals by throwing the ball into a blocky net. Skilled players reveal themselves when intercepting passes and setting up alley-oop shots. Causing turnovers by blasting the offender with a burst of energy is essential as well; it disjoints possession, sending the ball loose into the multi-tiered playing field.Erratic shifts in who’s carrying the ball causes frantic communication in teams who play to win, which is simultaneously part of what makes #IDARB entertaining, and why it’s smart. Clearly explaining where you are, when you’re available for a pass, and what you’re planning, is challenging but crucial. Helpful visual language, like the line popping out of players calling for passes, give ball-carriers information amid the babbling chaos of their couch competitors.And #IDARB is at its most enjoyable with a large competitive couch crew -- online multiplayer works, but I ran into persistent and significant problems. Most notably, it suffers from inconsistent latency issues that made each match a crap-shoot in performance; one would run smoothly, while the next had an unbearable frame rate that destroys the split-second timing that makes #IDARB a great game. Also, when playing alone at home, you can’t queue into a multiplayer game with custom settings -- playing alone means playing 1v1. Playing with one local pal means queuing into a 2v2, etc.#IDARB’s online multiplayer is neutered by an absence of matchmaking options, and I constantly wished I could jump into a four- or eight-player match when I didn’t have guests. This extends to local play somewhat as well. If you have, say, three or five players, the teams end up uneven, and there’s no way to fill the spot with an online player or A.I. bot -- and unbalanced teams led to one unhappy team every time.Customization options are excellent, though. If you’re all-in on #IDARB, you can create your own character sprites using a simple sprite editor. It’s too small to allow for much sophistication, but it was enough to use that I could recreate my favorite Dota 2 Heroes, and recognize dozens of the pre-made Halo, The Walking Dead, Super TIME Force, and suspiciously Disney Princess-esque characters.Using your sprites, or the included ones, you can create teams for tournaments, as well as give them their own intro music using #IDARB’s easy-to-use and surprisingly great music tool. I spent a couple hours composing little themes, messing with drum rhythms, bass lines, and goofy sound effects, and found the editor fun to use because it’s simple without sacrificing depth. It only allows for four instrument layers, but it was sufficient enough for my musician coworkers to create awesome compositions.