Whispering Rogue

Shade's taken total control of: Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island for PC             

Disembodiedspirits, zombies, crazy pirates, a psychotic witch and the God of the Dead should all make for one awesome game right? Rich in story, detailand roaringly funny? I think you bought the wrong game.

GAMEPLAY

Imust say that playing as a pirate with the ability to transform into a ghost was pretty compelling- Walking through locked doors, being invisible to humans and being able to crack people over the head andbeing undetectable was rather fun. At first. Then everything got easy. What cant you do as a ghost? And what you can’t do as a ghost, you just go back to your body and do it the old fashioned way.

GRAPHICS

What to say… what to say… The graphics were bad, indescribably bad at times. This game was actually made by the same guys who gave us A Vampyre Story and that should’ve been a clue to the crappiness I was soon to endure. Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island was along the same vein as Monkey Island (Not 1 & 2, they rocked)-with those highly animated graphics and way of interact ting with objects, but the graphics were often terrible, buggy, and a complete slap in the face of the advancement of computer animation everywhere. Example, I caught a parrot and had to release it on a tree branch, but the bird didn’t even fly, it seemed to float through the tree and suddenly appeared on the branch. There were SO many oversights likethis, it really screwed up the game for me. Come one, in this day andage, there is positively NO excuse for producing crappy animation ingames- Especially with games like Runaway and Machinarium out there- Jeez, even back in the day with King’s Quest and Hero’s Quest,those graphics were awesome because that was just where the gaming industry was at, and those games couldn’t get any better. How the hell did the creators of A Vampyre Story- with those stunning graphics (although bloody buggy too) produce something so… Crap?

MUSIC

Themusic was fine, as it was not meant to be a huge part of the game, butit did create a pleasant enough ambience with that whole Caribbean-type feel, and I suppose the voice acting was fine enough, with the only real annoyance being the constant fluctuation of people’s voices - one second you can’t hear, the next you’re deaf and other times you're hearing something completely different to what's written on the screen!. And during cutscenes, there are no subtitles, and the voicescut out frequently so you just have to gather what you can from the visuals.

STORYLINE

The missus betrays you, turnsyou into a ghost (but you’re not dead) then turns your friends into ghosts, and you spend the game trying to find your body then putting an end to this deceitful witch. It was involved and interesting at first,but then everything was put on fast forward and you didn’t even have topay attention to what you were doing- Everything ended in the blink ofan eye. You have to play through all 3 characters to successfully finish the game, or ask for their help on items and actions, as everycharacter has their own unique talents- a female pirate, a vooju witchdoctor and a pirate cook. It really wasn’t hard in the end, not too much thought involved and considering the teeth-grinding visuals and irritating voice ‘acting’, I wanted it to be over as fast as possible anyway.

An interesting concept, executed poorly,sloppily and tediously. I wouldn’t recommend it per se, but if you justwant to something to fill the time between breakfast and when your partner gets home from work, then go for it. I’m an adventure gamejunkie so matter how bad, unfortunately I just HAVE to play it. Don’thang on to this one, it’s not that important.

TTFN- Ta Ta For Now!

Shade is an avid gamer and loves playing them just for you so we hope you enjoy these reviews as it all just comes flowing out and it ain't stopping anytime soon!