Bringing action and platform gaming to Xbox 360 and later the Xbox One Raskulls is a game of comedy and fast paced gameplay designed for a group of friends. While gameplay changes slightly depending on the game Raskulls is primarily about navigating through the various levels as you destroy blocks of all sorts on the way to the end of the level with a focus on reaching this point in the fastest manner possible.
Taking place on the fictional home world of the Raskulls an evil race of space pirates has landed as they hunt for the planet of cheese. Requiring a powerful fuel source to restart their adventure they learn of the existence of the Shiny Stone that the Raskulls hold and attempt to claim it for themselves to continue their pirating adventures across space.
This serves the foundation of your campaign as you play as a Raskull as they chase and avoid the pirates in a number of single player levels within a story wrapping. On top of this story based experience players can engage in competitive multiplayer which supports up to 4 players and utilises similar mechanics but lets you play with your friends.
With similar gameplay in both campaign and multiplayer the story side of Raskulls can serve as a general tutorial to game mechanics with both seeing players move through levels with platform elements in an attempt to go from start to finish in the fastest time possible.
The central mechanic is the block breaking wands that each Raskull possesses which can break down a variety of blocks spread across these levels. Block types include colours which can be cleared quickly at once with a single zap and hard blocks that are grey, requiring several zaps and will explode if too many of these blocks touch. This combines with other mechanics such as water, frenzy and items that impact how you move through the block based maze levels.
Items include powerful attacks like Mega Zap which stuns other Raskulls on the map, Flame Charge that lets you power through several blocks with ease and Ghosty which makes you invisible to other players which create for chaotic gameplay. Meanwhile frenzy mode lets you run and shoot faster and fills up over time or with direct boosts from the environment. While these are primarily multiplayer focused mechanics a number of them do show up in smaller scales in the campaign single player mode.
While basic on the surface Raskulls uses all of these mechanics in various ways through both single player and multiplayer levels to keep things fresh and action focused. All of this is taken to its real potential in the multiplayer scene though as real players test your racing skills with the competitively focused mode.
Summary:
- A fast paced maze and platform game for Xbox 360 and later released on Xbox One.
- Blast out blocks as you race for the finish line or level objective.
- Use powerful items to give you an edge and change the core mechanics with faster block clearing or invisibility.
- Extensive single player campaign combined with multiplayer offerings for up to 4 players.
- Filled with humour and comedy with a game world that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
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Review Platform: Xbox One
