Putting all
fanboyish comments aside for a moment, I am going to be brutally honest with
you all about my thoughts on the original Xbox. The original Xbox would have
been a complete and utter flop of a console if it wasn’t for two things. The
first thing is Sega probably being the system’s best third-party developer. The
second thing is a bit more obvious with the console’s success due to Halo. I
mean, seriously, if you had to think of one game that represented the original
Xbox, what would it be? Of course, it would be Halo. And before anyone leaves a
negative comment about my opinion of the console, I know there are other great
games for the console besides Halo. I am just hammering in that opinion because
while the Xbox had Halo and Halo 2, it really had no other flagship franchise
going for it until the Xbox360 came out, and it got franchises like Gears of
War and the Alan Wake series. With that being said though, it had some really
good underrated gems that I never heard of or know very little about, and this happens to be one of those games,
Voodoo Vince. I know the Xbox was never really known for its platformers. I
remember it tried having a platforming mascot, like Sega having Sonic and
Nintendo of course having Mario, but the platforming mascot for Xbox was kind
of, well, non-existent. Let us see if this prickly doll has what it takes to be
this old console’s platformer icon.
The main story
revolves around a voodoo doll name Vince, voiced by Ken Boynton. He is the
voodoo doll that his owner uses in a small magic shop. One day, some grunts who
work for a guy named Kosmo the Inscrutable, invade the store. The grunts take
some zombie dust that is apparently all-powerful magic for Kosmo to use to conquer
the world. They also kidnap Vince’s owner, Madam Charmaine, in the process.
Luckily, some of the zombie dust brings Vince to life. It is up to Vince to get
his master back and take down Kosmo to save the world. To be honest, the story
is just okay. Besides a few clever lines and quotes, the story is forgettable.
Vince isn’t that interesting of a character, and I felt like the developers
were trying to make him some kind of Banjo Kazooie or Conker’s character with
the sarcastic quips and fourth wall breaking jokes, but most of his lines fall
flat. The developers, Beep Industries, made this their first game and after
that, moved onto downloadable PC games. Sure shows how popular this game was.
Okay, that might have been harsh, but I don’t hear anyone talking about wanting
a Voodoo Vince 2 for next gen consoles.
Voodoo Vince plays
like your everyday 3D platformer where you traverse open-ended levels to solve
one huge puzzle to progress to the next level. There is some much needed
variety in certain areas that does break up some of the platforming, which can
be tricky at times. These activities go from riding down a clothesline
collecting shirts, to flying a plane, and you get the idea. Since Vince is a
voodoo doll, he of course can perform voodoo tricks, but these act as a
clearing devices to rid a certain area of enemies. They all die, but there is
some decent variety in how Vince kills himself and wipes out the enemies, from
getting crushed, melted, to having a terrible time in the bathroom, and etc. Weirdly
though, Vince can die, so make sure you keep his health up. There are a lot of
things to collect from refilling your magic gauge, upgrading your health bar, to
increasing your magic bar. There is a decent amount of stuff to do, and will
probably be a good game for the completionist-style of gamers to try out.
The graphics are
solid, nothing visually amazing, but it doesn’t look terrible. There are a good
amount of colors and I do like how the world has a sort of New Orleans feel to
it. This kind of vibe also goes into the music, which while not memorable to
me, is solid and has one or two good songs. The voice work is also just okay. I
know I keep saying how okay this game is, but I will get to that later. Like I
said above, there are some funny lines here and there that do give the main
hero some personality.
So, apparently I
have shown I have problems with this game. The whole game is just okay. I feel
like the developers were not being ambitious enough. They could have easily
taken the voodoo concept farther and made this a unique puzzle-solving
platformer, but nope! Sure, the bosses and the areas that break up the
platforming are pretty cool, but the whole time I felt like I should be playing
a different Xbox game or just a better game in general. I also think the way to
increase the magic use is tedious. You have to collect all of the skull pages
in the level and then go find a skull. Easy enough, but you have to get there
in a certain period of time or else you won’t get it. I understand that there
should be challenge and reward for completing said challenge, but when I could
easily refill one skull quickly by beating a group of enemies, why would I want
to search for these somewhat tedious skull pages for a skull I might not even
get? This is also one of those games. while giving you an idea of what you need
to do, doesn’t do it well enough. I’m not one to have a tutorial every 5
minutes, but I was confused on what to do at times.
Decent, average,
just okay, no matter how you say it. Voodoo Vince is just an average platformer.
I would guess this is why Microsoft’s consoles aren’t really known for their
platformers until Twisted Pixel released their Splosion Man franchise. This
game honestly does have a lot of cool ideas, and like I said, there are some
things I do like about it, but it’s all buried under average platforming, a
mediocre and mostly forgettable story, and game mechanics that could have been
taken much farther, but aren’t. If you are looking to collect every Xbox game,
go ahead and pick it up, but if you want great platformers from the time this
game came out, go get Super Mario Sunshine for the Gamecube or Klonoa 2 for the
PS2. I feel kind of bad starting this four part special with such an average
game, so why not arm ourselves and get dangerous with the next game?
This
game gets a 6 out of 10.
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