Voodoo Vince comes to life again.

3D platformers seem to be making a nostalgic return.  The remastered packaging of Crash Bandicoot, Jak & Daxter, and the release of the Banjo-Kazooie’s spiritual successor, Yooka-Laylee, all tapping into that feeling.  Not to be outdone, a small cult classic from the original Xbox is getting the remastering treatment too, Voodoo Vince.  Is nostalgia wearing rose tinted glasses?  Or is Voodoo Vince Remastered worth the update?

"My grandfather was a voodoo priest. A lot of my life dealt with spirituality. I can close my eyes and remember where I come from." -  Wyclef Jean

Ah Voodoo Vince, the wise-cracking voodoo doll who is brought to life after the bad guys, Jeb and Fingers, spilled magical Zombie Dust on him while kidnapping his voodoo priestess, Madam Charmaine.  In their escape they spill so much of the Zombie Dust between Madam Charmaine’s shop and Kosmo the Inscrutable’s headquarters, they warp reality all along their escape route.  Vince’s journey takes him through under and around the French Quarter of New Orleans.

"Day in, day out. That same old voodoo follows me about." - Johnny Mercer

The colorful Saturday morning cartoon style of the original Voodoo Vince is still here, but has been overhauled for a crisper and cleaner HD experience.  Included in the upgrade is the fun jazzy soundtrack.  The rest of the game has been lifted part and parcel from the original, so no changes here.  At first glance, all the typical ‘90’s platforming elements are here.

Platforming jumps to navigate?  Check.  Puzzles to solve?  Check.  Creatures to defeat using spin moves and jump attacks?  Check.  Lots of collectibles to find and gather?  Check.  The hook for Voodoo Vince was his special voodoo powers.  Hurting himself with different moves to defeat multiple enemies and severely injure, if not outright destroy, mini-bosses.

The camera for Voodoo Vince, like almost all platformers of its time, is problematic.  It’s here that some of the charm wears a little thin. Not always staying where you put it, moving or zooming in/out at the wrong time, not always letting you get a good angle.  In some instances I understand it being locked down for an animated sequence or special puzzle part, but some places it was just pure trouble.  This happened mostly when I was trying to catch the collectible glowing skull in each level.  You end up guessing where it is as you chase it through most of the level because you can never keep the camera on it to follow it.  This causes you to end up chasing it a lot more than you should.

Overall

I played the original Voodoo Vince on the first Xbox and it was a happy surprise to hear that it was getting an HD remaster.  With the exception of Microsoft-owned franchises, very few of the games that were exclusive to the original Xbox have gotten this treatment.  The nostalgia in me enjoyed playing through it all over again, but the gamer in me wishes they could have tweaked the camera for better control and maybe made some new levels to expand on the admittedly thin story.

Voodoo Vince does still play well and increases the desire for more good platforming games, so maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll do a Voodoo Vince 2 after all these years?  One can hope!  Voodoo Vince Remastered takes us on a happy ride through the way-back machine with better visuals and family fun.  I give it 3.5 out of 5.

Voodoo Vince is available now on the Xbox Live, Play Anywhere (Xbox One and Microsoft Windows) and on Steam.

Chaos and Order in Streets of Rogue

Creating order out of chaos; everyone does this on some level, daily.  Making meals, working at a job, cleaning house, even playing games, it's all a matter of looking at the pieces you are given and putting them together.  How we do that is what helps us accomplish our goals.  Matt Dabrowski’s Streets of Rogue is a lot of that, looking at the chaotic pieces and figuring out how to make it work for you.  Let’s see how hard it is to clean up the city.

"Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man." - Henry Adams

Streets of Rogue is a roguelike style game that doesn’t take itself too seriously.  The storyline is simple; you have joined an underground resistance group after a corrupt Mayor has taken office.  His promises of "lowering taxes" and "more beer" were instantly flipped when, after his inauguration, he raised taxes and confiscated all alcohol.  The Mayor attempted to explain away the confiscation by saying it was so he could throw the "mother of all ragers for his constituents."  Instead, it was one keg and one bag of tortilla chips.

And so it goes, as you start in the slums and work your way up through the stages of the city to again bring peace and order to a once prosperous city.

"We adore chaos because we love to produce order." - M. C. Escher

The style of Streets of Rogue is, well, brutal.  You have one life.  If you get killed it’s all the way back to the start in the slums.  Everything you’ve found or earned is gone and you have to build yourself back up.  The only things that stay are the Chicken Nuggets you earned (in game currency) and any traits you’ve “unlocked.”  A quick note on the traits, they are not something you will have right off the bat at the start of the game.  You have to unlock the ability to have them randomly offered to you as you level up.  There is a lot of randomness in Streets of Rogue, so you never quite know what you’ll get next.

Each level is randomly generated with equally random missions for you to complete before you can move on to the next level.  These could consist of freeing slaves, recovering items, neutralizing people or just pushing buttons.  Typically there are at least two missions per level.  How you go about completing these missions is up to you.  Each mission can be done in several ways, which depends on the character class you chose.

Let me explain.  There are many characters to choose from at the start and more to unlock as you complete specific tasks in the game.  For example, if you rescue a gorilla in a level you unlock the gorilla as a playable character.  Each character has their pros and cons.  Again let's look at the gorilla; since this is the character I've played the most.  The gorilla has some of the best stats in the game; high strength, endurance, and speed, but low accuracy.  Gorillas can't speak, so any mission where I need to talk to someone, I'll have to find an alternate way of completing.  On the other hand, they receive double health points when I eat bananas.

When I first started playing I didn't pay much attention to these character pros and cons.  As a result, I got killed often.  It wasn't until I played multiplayer with a friend that I started not only noticing character stats but also how certain rules in the world could be used.  For example, I received a mission to neutralize a scientist.  If my character is low on their heath or is otherwise unable to confront the scientist, but there is a caged gorilla on the level and I am able to somehow release it, the gorilla will automatically attack the scientist.  They are "natural enemies" in the Streets of Rogue universe because the scientist is always experimenting on the gorilla.  It's things like that; when you step back and examine how the world works, Streets of Rogue becomes a delightful puzzle where you work out how to pit the game against itself.

"Chaos is a friend of mine." - Bob Dylan

Now working the rules of the game against itself does make it easier, but you will still find it a tough challenge to get through the game.  Playing solo, I've barely made a dent, but I am sure it can be done.  However, if you bring some friends who know how things work it all becomes even easier.  When I started playing with a friend of mine we both were still learning the game for the most part.  Even so together we were getting further along than we had on our own.  Pushing through the slums into the industrial areas.  Co-op maxes out at four players and I can see a well-coordinated team that has the right balance of character classes reaching the end.

Overall

For me, Streets of Rogue started as a "what the hell am I doing wrong?" game.  As I learned more, it became, "OK if I do this, this will happen, so then I can do this."  At that point I really started enjoying the game.  It is currently available as an early access game on Steam with plans to eventually bring it to consoles.  For a game that is "not finished" it is surprisingly pretty damn solid.  I myself did not encounter any bugs so kudos to Matt Dabrowski.  The game is continuously getting tweaked and updated and Matt has stated in his Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) that even he isn't sure when it will be completely done.  As for myself, I am going to try to corral a couple more friends into playing it.  Once you know the game it becomes a fabulous romp of chaos and triumph.  I give Streets of Rogue a 4 out of 5.

For more information see the official Streets of Rogue website.

Here is a look at the first 45 minutes of gameplay in Streets of Rogue.