VOODOO VINCE

Up until I received this game, I had only heard a few people mention the Xbox game VOODOO VINCE. I wasn't able to attend E3 this year, and James must've missed it at Microsoft's booth. So I booted up the preview copy of the game I got and let me tell you, this is one weird game.

Madame Charmaine runs the local voodoo shop in town. She has something called magic Zombie Dust, and apparently more than one of the local bad guys want some of it. Kosmo, the owner of the run down carnival in town, is one of those bad guys. He sends a couple of his henchmen to Charmaine's store to steal some of the magic dust. Being idiots, the henchmen spill most of the dust, causing a "storm" of such in the store. When Madame Charmaine comes to thwart them, she is hit in the head by a flying object, and is kidnapped by the henchmen. Luckily, when the Zombie Dust was unleashed, it gave life to Vince, Charmaine's third best voodoo doll. So it's up to him to save Charmaine and get all the Zombie Dust back and make the world right again.

Since Vince really has no clue as to where Charmaine has been taken, you'll have to explore over thirty levels with him, ranging from New Orleans and bayous to sewers and carnivals. The game is played in third person and is a platformer game. Vince's moves range from mainly punches and kicks, to spins and super -jumps. Of course, you'll be able to learn special moves by collecting power-ups in the game. There are forty voodoo powers found throughout the game, although finding all of them isn't necessary to complete the game.

During VOODOO VINCE, you will run into more than just the normal platforming you'll find in most games like this: VOODOO VINCE has a lot of puzzles that must be solved. One of the most humorous ones that I've run into is where you have to become a fuse. Basically, you light yourself on fire and must stay lit so you can blow up some evil gas pumps. The main place where VOODOO VINCE shines is in the humor department, and the game is just amusing from the start.

VOODOO VINCE

© Microsoft Game Studios

Vince will also have vehicles at his control during certain points in the game. In the bayou, you'll have control of a swamp boat while you're running errands. At other points in the game, you'll use submarines, airplanes and motorcycles.

VOODOO VINCE is a very good looking game. While the graphics will be tweaked a bit before release, the game already looks great and the city of New Orleans is pretty realistic. Apparently the dev team took a video camera around in the city to make sure the game was realistic enough.

VOODOO VINCE looks like it will turn out to be a game that Xbox gamers have been looking for - a platformer, something the Xbox doesn't have much of (quality wise anyway).