Voodoo Vince returns to the Xbox One in a remastered fashion, but has the gameplay aged well?
Voodoo Vince was a game that appeared on the original Xbox and was released way back in 2003. You play as a voodoo doll called Vince who is brought to life when two thieves (Jeb and Fingers) break into Madame Charmaine's Voodoo Shop trying to steal her supply of zombie dust, everything then goes wrong and Madame Charmaine is kidnapped and taken to the thieves' boss Kosmo the Inscrutable who is a stereotypical nerd who just comes off as annoying and not the dastardly villain that he pretends to be. In the confusion of the escape some of the zombie dust lands on Vince animating him and he decides to rescue his owner and save the day.
Vince has an array of voodoo powers that will help him with his task and Vince does most of his damage to his enemies when he harms himself, half of the fun was pressing the triggers to see which one of the 30 powers, that are collected throughout the game by either exploration or defeating hidden bosses, would randomly occur. One of my favourites was where an apple would appear over Vince's head and a volley of arrows would hit every part of Vince except the apple, this would then in turn happen to all the enemies near Vince.
There are six areas of New Orleans to explore including a bayou and a cemetery, which all adds to the unique personality of the game. I loved the Jazz soundtrack and even found myself stopping to listen to the music on occasion, and that is something I never normally do as I find the music in most games jarring and detracting from the ambiance, so I usually find myself having to turn it off.
The levels themselves, whilst large, feel empty and much more could have been done to populate them either with more enemies or more varied puzzles as jumping over the same style of pit does reduce the enjoyment of the game.
Voodoo Vince Remastered feels like a new experience even without the 1080p resolution and the 60 fps frame rate, and it just goes to show what a classic the original Voodoo Vince was and how well the gameplay has aged. While it is a typical platformer, it does it well and with a certain charm, but that's probably just the Cajun talking.
Gumbo anyone?!