Aren’t we over the whole ‘which random cool people are better?’ thing? Pirates, ninjas, zombies, aliens – they’re all here in this self-consciously ‘wacky’ dodgeball game. And if the premise of blathering on about how cool pirates and ninjas are is a bit tired, the game itself isn’t much better. Originally an Xbox Live download (where it cost a few bucks), it’s been given some extra challenges and a Story mode. The story’s lame, though, with static dialogue scenes shorter than the loading screens.

There’s a Dodgebrawl option where you can thunk members of the other team by waving the remote and roam over the whole playing area, but this isn’t enough to overcome the game’s basic faults. What are these faults? Well, despite the logical controls, the player sprites are so indistinct it’s often hard to see what’s going on, particularly in single-player – at least with a friend playing you can ask them what’s happening. Some arenas are unhelpful, too, hiding the ball or players behind scenery. And whichever characters you play as, the gameplay is always the same – there’s no advantage in picking, say, zombies over aliens, or playing in a particular arena.

As a WiiWare game, Pirates vs Ninjas would be worth a few points for a quick bit of multiplayer fun, but for the hefty price? Not cool.

Aug 10, 2009