Raskulls Review
Raskulls is an XBOX Live Arcade game in which you will be playing as one of many different skull faced characters trying to complete some task that usually revolves around some sort of race. You will definitely get blowing up a ton of blocks to get to your goal.
Graphically there's the feel of a little bit of cutesy with a little bit of the absurd. Some of the character designs are a dragon, well a skull faced individual in a dragon costume, little red riding hood, a king, a mummy, a duck, and a ninja, to name a few.
The sound in the game is basically on par with the design. It definitely sounds like a XBLA game, and so the music fits the bill.
The controls are really simple, and you're going to be mashing those buttons a lot to try to win the stage that you currently find yourself. A is for jumping, and Y is to use your special item.
So there's a quest mode, with a very "cheesy" storyline. Then there's Grand Prix and Quick race. As I mention before this game is all about a race. Now sometimes you will find that you'll have to reach the checkered area under a certain amount of time, beat fellow Skulls to it, meet some kind of condition while getting there (don't run out of zaps, finish with frenzy, win and get rid of the curse, etc). There seems to be a puzzle game locked in there. I say that because in order to get through the race you're going to be blasting through blocks to get to the finish line, and sometimes just brute zapping isn't going to get it done, you've got to figure out what will cause you the biggest advantage. All in all this game feels like it wears out all its tricks shortly into the story mode, and there's only so many times you're going to want to race throw a level trying to beat out the opponent. This is definitely a game that you should break out every sixth party that you have, but definitely not something that has legs to be continuously played. There are areas that you can go back through in the story mode to unlock more characters, but to be honest once I saw the last stage come and go, I have no desire to try to unlock those extra pieces.
With a good idea, and maybe making it too complicated, and then stretching it too thin I can see that not a lot of people are going to LOVE this game. I'm sure that there is some out there who will enjoy the game from time to time, but for me I'm going to have to give this game a 5.4 out of 10.
