Coming from grasshopper Manufacture Diabolical Pitch comes with the expected tropes of a Grasshopper game.
Like most all Grasshopper games before it Diabolical Pitch is dripping with a distinct style and attitude. It's a game with a stripped down design and premise. As the games title implies its a game where the primary action is pitching. For those not clear , Pitching as in baseball pitching.
Your washed up baseball pitcher McAllister who's career crashed and burned after an over zealous pitch caused a permanent injury to his arm.
During a late night drive McAllister comes across an amusement park unlike any other. Manned apparently by a lone figure, who happens to be a demonic doll with a cow for a head, McAllister is offered the chance to regain his skills and career. The catch, no pun intended, he has to make it through all of the theme parks different areas.
The story is told in an odd paper cut out style of animated cut scenes that helps to sell a creepy/cool ascetic that the whole game is going for. The whole look of the game is based around the them park and makes the whole experience feel like your taking part in a massive arcade game. This is to its strength and actually helps to validate the whole kinect experience.
If arcade machines had kinect style control set ups they could actually work extremely well.
That's what Diabolical Pitch is, One massively bombastic arcade game.
To help sell this design choice even further are sound effects that include pinball machine like sounds. Power ups and score multipliers that come from slot machines. Bright colours and loud music.
It's also short in the same way an arcade machine would be. 5 worlds made up of 3 levels each and a bonus level, Each level can be finished in just a few moments and world in 10 to 15. This is a good thing as the issue with much of the game is just how repetitive it is. Best suited to dropping in and playing for several short sittings rather then long playthroughs.
Also despite all the glitz and bombasity it's a game that doesn't really hold our attention for long. Aside from adding some new power ups and enemy variants along the way each level is pretty much the same the whole way through. The game is not much more then a slightly more challenging shooting gallery, or coconut shy. Enemies pop up and you knock them down.
Play for too long and things can become stale.
The biggest issue is with the kinect sensitivity. Often you might want to quickly throw several balls in relatively quick succession only to have the kinect not pick up several attempts to pitch. Pitching slower can improve accuracy but this can be a detriment to the speed in which you may find yourself needing to pitch.
On top of this some enemies require using the second hand to target lock on before pitching in order to effectively attack.
At times where you might have two or 3 enemies on screen and your attempting to lock on while quickly pitching can become frustrating. You do have a limited number of close quarters kicks you can use to keep the demons at bay, but even that move can occasionally suffer from recognition problems.
This is the issue with several Grasshopper titles though, classy games, with great fun ideas but more often then not also come with slight ropey issue with regards to actual game-play implementation.
That's not to say that Diabolical pitch is a terrible experience, but it's a child of the arcades and it shows that proudly on its chest. warts and all.
Go in expecting short bouts of crazy fun then you'll have a great time with it.