I will be one of the first to admit that when I heard about Pirates
vs. Ninja Dodge ball, I was genuinely intrigued and interested. Unfortunately, the game is very quick to
disappoint on any expectations you may have had. Which is unfortunate, as this game could have
been a very fun Xbox Live Arcade title. The game, as the title suggests,
features Pirates and Ninjas playing dodge ball against each other, as well as
Robots and Zombies. It has 3 different modes in Singleplayer, Multiplayer and
Co-op, each of which has its own game types.
In singleplayer, you have Exhibition, Story or
Tutorial. The Exhibition is a run down
of different match types, that include 1 vs. 1 up to 4 vs. 4, and you can
choose how many rounds, how tough the AI is, which team you are on, how many
balls are in play, and what the rules will be. The Story is basically a very weak storyline, that seems thrown together
to try and give the game more playability, just don’t expect much in the terms
of depth here folks. I will be honest,
and say the AI is way too cheap even on the easiest setting. I found myself constantly losing to the
opponent, and even my teammates weren’t on par skill wise with the
computer. I spent most of the time
running around the maps trying to grab a ball, only to have my teammate grab
the ball before I did, and don’t even get me started on when a ball gets stuck
in a corner.
I have tried to play the online multiplayer, but it rarely
finds games for me to play in, and it’s never consistent. I don’t know if this is due to poor servers
or just not many are actually playing the game. I ran into constant issues of
hit detection miscues, and way too much lag for only 4 to 8 people being on
screen at once. So the online experience was very problematic and frustrating. As for Local multiplayer, this is actually
kind of fun as having human opponents brings a different feel for the
game. While it is utter chaos, it’s
having people together, laughing and carrying on and trash talking each
other.
Overall, there are some very serious issues with this game
that need to be addressed and it feels like it needed some time to cook a
little longer before it came out of the developer’s oven. I can only recommend this game to those who
constantly are having friends over, as this is a fun little “party” game. If
you absolutely must play the game, I suggest trying out the demo first before handing over your 800 MS Points on this game.
Rating: 5.5/10