Voodoo Vince Impressions

Microsoft brought a nearly complete build of Voodoo Vince to our offices today, and we got to see a brief demo of the game in action. We also got to chat with creative director Clayton Kauzlaric about the game's production process, and he shared a few interesting details on the development of what's looking like a very unique and interesting platformer.

To briefly summarize the story: Voodoo Vince is a voodoo doll, the third best such doll in the shop of curiosities run by New Orleans mystic Madame Charmaine. The evil Kosmo the Inscrutable has made off with Madame Charmaine's potent zombie dust (as well as the Madame herself), and so Vince, brought to life by the spreading of this mysterious dust, has to rescue her and stop Kosmo from bringing his nefarious plans to fruition. The game is a basic platformer at its core--you can run Vince around the multitude of environments, punching and butt-stomping enemies as you might expect. In addition to these simple attacks, you'll have a huge assortment of voodoo powers to use against enemies. Well, you'll actually use these powers against Vince himself, but since he's a voodoo doll, the effects will be keenly felt by nearby enemies as well. In one of the special moves we saw, Vince stuck himself with straight pins, which merely caused harm to nearby enemies. In another, he became a living electromagnet, and as he was crushed by giant flying metal objects, so were the enemies. Finally, we even saw Vince zapped by a flying alien laser cannon, frying his foes in the process. There will be somewhere around 40 of these voodoo powers in the game, which should keep both the variety of gameplay and the comedic feel going throughout.

Voodoo Vince will also feature several vehicle stages, and we got to see a few of them in action. Vince is a pretty tiny doll, and in one stage he was mounted atop a sewer rat, racing around an angry animated statue in an attempt to crush the rampaging sculpture for good. The statue would occasionally buck hard enough to send pieces of the ceiling flying down, and the twist here (as in most of the game) is that you actually wanted Vince to get hit by the crumbling rock, as the resulting damage is transferred to the statue. We also got to see Vince traveling underwater in a submarine that looked suspiciously like a shrimp, and he even took to the skies in a miniature biplane.

Graphically, Voodoo Vince looked quite good. The frame rate was consistently smooth throughout the handful of levels we saw, and the lighting, bump mapping, and particle effects on display were consistent with the graphical quality we've come to expect from original Xbox titles. Kauzlaric said the graphics will be further tweaked and polished before the game's September release. Of special note are the unique atmosphere and quality production values in Voodoo Vince. The design of the levels is pretty wacky--we saw nary a right angle in the French Quarter levels, as buildings, sidewalks, and the like all seemed to exist just a little bit off-kilter. From what we heard, the game's music is also quite appropriate given the New Orleans setting--it's suitably jazzy, and there will be over three hours of it, all originally composed and mostly performed by actual musicians.

If our brief demo today was any indication, Voodoo Vince is shaping up to be a truly original and interesting game. It's slated to ship around the end of September, and we'll bring you new media and hands-on coverage of the game in the near future.