Pain. It’s an interesting concept when put into a game, you see usually (with platformer games) pain inflicted upon enemies to kill them and thus progress through the game. Voodoo Vince looks to the alternate, a complete alternate for you see Microsoft have put an interesting twist on the platform game and have decided that killing yourself allows you to win the game, strange but true…

Gameplay:
The game as different as it is, starts off in a small voodoo shop in a random town in which a strange ‘zombie dust’ is kept by Madame Charmaine; this in turn is stolen by the bad guy in the game – Kosmo the Inserntable. Sheerly because of his lust of power and possessions, and once it’s stolen many of the weird powers the zombie dust possesses have been released into the world causing it to warp and create many strange phenomenon’s, including her third favourite voodoo doll: Vince who has been brought to life and becoming her only hope Vince is set on a mission to save Madame Charmaine. Voodoo Vince starts off playing like your average platformer: Vince jumps, attacks and has his special powers, but what makes the game so great and strangely interesting to play is that hurting yourself results in destroying your enemies, hence the voodoo doll.

The game starts you off in your hunt for Madame Charmaine in the local streets around her voodoo shop, along the way you encounter many different types of enemies most of which can be killed with a few punches or with Vince’s spin attack allowing you to kill enemies within a 360 degree radius. By killing your enemies you receive small handfuls of powerups, these powerups include small bottles of zombie dust – these are collected from levels and not enemies and collecting 100 of these gives you an extra health bar. Voodoo icons enable Vince’s special powers once enabled by collecting enough from enemies these are also dotted around the level and provide new and more powerful ways for Vince to kill himself including getting caught in a bear trap, shot by aliens and cut in half by a chainsaw plus many more hilarious violent moments! Once this power is unleashed it is inflicted upon all of the enemies that are near Vince at the time.

But some enemies require more than a simple smashing and general beating of Vince, some thought has to be put in by solving a puzzle in one form or another and they do test the old noggin quite a bit a times but not the extent that you’re stuck on a single puzzle for 3 hours at a time. But in general playing through Voodoo Vince is quite fun - Vince has many witty lines throughout the game and is quite fun as a gaming character as a whole, killing enemies does become a little repetitive especially if you’re just using Vince’s spin move, the special moves will always keep you laughing though.

Landscapes are very large indeed and have plenty to explore within them, collecting all the power ups will take a while and keeps the game going for that little extra. My only complaint while playing the game is that if Vince gets hurt by bad guys why don’t they get hurt? It’s an over complicated theory but I guess Microsoft had to work their way around this saying that only bad guys can hurt Vince as it would’ve made the game easy as hell. The game is great fun to play through it’s just a shame there’s only a single player mode to the game and that’s it. The game is more on the kiddie range of the Xbox but at the end of the day it’s purely and simply clean fun for all ages.

Graphics:
Graphics in Voodoo Vince are exceptional, you can see that the game has been made by Microsoft as they know the technology inside out. The graphics look really life like considering it’s well, extremely fictional to say the least, they’re smooth and are a joy to watch as you play the game. Some special effects are very nicely implemented and animation is flawless, there is so much detail to the whole game and everything becomes something of interest. The game may not incorporate anything new as far as graphics go but they sure as hell as push them to the limits in the game and make one hell of a show to watch while you play.

Sound:
The music is very average and doesn’t pull any strings when you’re playing, it certainly doesn’t liven up the action when playing. The music tends to generate a mediocre approach and consists of piano and the like, it’s not like I except full on Iron Maiden guitar solos throughout the game but something with a little more excitement would have made the game feel alive a little more.

Longevity:
The game largely consists of the single player mode with only some demos of other games available on the disc, leaving no multiplayer/Live content. But this game doesn’t feel like it needs the addition of anything else than its single player mode as the game is really good to play through, it has good longetivity and will there’s always something interesting as you’ll always have a new and most likely harder puzzle to work through along with Vince’s brilliant sense of humour to keep you going throughout the game.

Round Up:
Voodoo Vince in no way redefines platforming games but it makes one hell of a platformer, considering the Xbox doesn’t have too many and is great fun to play from beginning to end which will take a while. Perhaps some downloadable content could of added that extra appeal, what can I say it’s a great platformer and would make a great Christmas present for any age, right that’s it everyone kill Vince…..no wait a minute.

Pros:

• Incredible graphics – so detailed!
  
• Platformer gameplay that is actually good and is fun to play through
  
• Has a very nice balance to the game in general
  

  Cons:
  

  • No extra modes
    
  • Sound is a bit, well, crap really