Voodoo Vince Hands-On

As its title suggests, Voodoo Vince is an upcoming platformer for the Xbox that draws its influence from the magical world of voodoo. The game's lead character, Vince (who also happens to be a voodoo doll), can inflict damage on enemies by mangling himself through the use of special voodoo powers. The demo began with a brief tutorial on how to use Vince's basic attacks as well as how to charge up a meter so that he could unleash one of his devastating (and often amusing) voodoo attacks, which essentially kills all of the enemies onscreen at once. The meter can be charged by collecting orbs left behind by fallen enemies.

Interestingly, Vince doesn't automatically have access to these powers right off the bat--he has to explore the level and find special items that will give him different voodoo attacks. One such attack, called the gift cow, causes an enormous cow to fall from the sky, crushing Voodoo Vince under its enormous girth. Naturally, this cow also has a flatulence problem, so Vince is tortured even further before the cow leaves and the surrounding enemies are summarily dealt with. Another voodoo attack makes a chainsaw appear, which then flies over toward Vince, cutting his head off and causing all of the enemies to be split in half. The voodoo attacks really add a tremendous amount of personality to an already odd game.

Action isn't the primary focus in Voodoo Vince, since there are quite a bit of platforming and exploration elements involved as well. The levels in the game, which are designed after locations in Louisiana, have all the nuances of a platformer, such as bottomless pits that Vince must jump or glide over as well as ledges that require some precise jumping in order to access parts of the level that are off the main path.

It appears that there are some puzzle elements involved in the game as well. In one level, Vince can't get past a certain point in the level because it's being guarded by a gas-station monster with octopuslike gasoline pumps for arms. So you have to figure out how to get by this particular foe, but after realizing that you can actually set Voodoo Vince on fire, the solution to this particular problem becomes readily apparent.

Voodoo Vince is scheduled for release on the Xbox later this year.