I was not very familiar with Raskulls when I first started thinking about reviewing it. On top of that I was not very familiar with Halfbrick either. I entered this game not knowing what to expect and I was not disappointed.
Raskulls is the second edition to the Games for the Holidays event on Xbox LIVE. The first being A World of Keflings and the third being ilomilo. This game is such a great game. It’s a puzzle/platformer, racer and side scroller all balled up into one game. As your playing it you can’t help buy think about some of the great games from our past. This game has a bit of Mario, Sonic, Dig Dug and even Tetris mixed in. The story as on most platformers is littler more than paper thin, but the game play more than makes up for it. The story of a ship of rat pirated who have ran out of fuel and the only way to replenish is to take the Raskulls ‘Shiny Stones’ for a fuel source. Through out the game you will fight in what seems to be one huge tournament of races and challenges to either get back or collect the shiny stones and keep them away from the rat pirates.
Not only is this game hard, but it will stress you out mentally. As I was trying to puzzle my way through the levels and challenges my brain actually felt like it was getting tired mid way through challenges and I would return to the map and try something else only to go back later and complete the challenge I was once stuck on. Challenges range from simple to Frustrating. Nothing that can’t be over came with time and patience. You will play as a variety of Raskulls throughout the game and have the chance to unlock several multiplayer characters in the mega challenges. There are three single player options headed by the ‘Mega Quest’. That is the main story of the game and is fairly long if you complete the game 100%. It is an all text story and can tend to take away from the already sometimes slow to move on challenges. The flow of the game would be better with some sort of voice acting, but it is nothing that kills the game, well it didn’t for me anyway.
The multiplayer is loads of fun and can be played local or on Xbox LIVE. It’s basically doing the exact same thing you do in single player except with friends. Halfbrick did throw us a small ranking system in to keep things interesting. If you have played and unlocked and achievement in A World of Keflings or ilomilo you can play as the games respective characters in muliplayer. I only played a small amount of multiplayer and was very impressed at how much fun it can be, especially with friends. With 200GS to be unlocked in the achievements ranging from single player progress to performing feats in multiplayer it will raise your GS with time played. It also has to avatar awards to unlock by completing certain challenges.
All in all Raskulls is worth the 800MS points it will cost to download and will give you around 10 or more hours of fun. The replay value is pretty good too if you like multiplayer. If you are a fan of platformer/puzzle games in general this one is for you. Being the second game in Microsofts Games for the Holidays event it stands well with the other two games in the event and is worth the buy.
