Raskulls tries so very, very hard. It's a very interesting game with a really cute sense of style. Despite it's characters essentially being dimwitted skeletons they are pretty adorable.
Our story starts with a crew of dastardly space pirats (no really, they are called pirats and they are anthropomorphic pirate rats) and their leader Captain J. Turncoat. They're ship has crash landed on the Raskulls home world and require a new source of energy in order to leave. And with that their off to steal the Raskulls' mystical artifacts of infinite energy. Or whatever. The scenes in which the story plays out seem to look alot like a hastily put together flash animation. It's just barely bearable but it doesn't break the sense of cuteness developer Halfbrick was going for with it's skull creatures.. It's unique, I'll give it that.
The player is tasked with completing several levels in a sort of Super Mario kind of overworld. Certain levels must be passed in order for the player to be able to branch off through connecting levels. There are 3 worlds in the story mode (called Mega Quest in-game) and each has the player playing as a different Raskull. But really, the only difference between them is their costumes. The levels themselves have a few variety such as race events, timed laps and bomb-ish defusal but it mostly rests on the core of it's gameplay: zapping blocks. Yes you'll navigate your Raskull through mazes of colorful blocks, mindlessly and repetitively zapping them into oblivion in order to beat our opponents in a race to the finish line. It sounds a bit boring but it isn't without merit. Some of the levels utilize block zapping with positive effect (like defusing bombs (or knock-off smurf wannabes, whatever)). But ultimately this game fails to really keep the player interested once the short story has reached it's conclusion.
In the Mega Quest a handy window pops up over every level in order for you to see how well your friends have done so you can try to beat their times. Multiplayer is executed through 4 different circuits of races. You'll be able to unlock various Raskulls to race as (though none of them are really any different then another). You'll be pitted against 4 other players at a time and their conclusions are usually based on who can zap the fastest and maintain Frenzy the longest.
Frenzy is sort of like the star from Mario, it makes the player faster (though not really invincible). Multiplayer is also possible over split screen.
Raskulls is a fun little distraction, but thats about all the good it does. I really hope the developer Halfbrick can bring out more levels with interesting designs based around the block zapping mechanics they have through downloadable content. I would totally pay for it. I would also play a sequel just so long as the often chuckle-worthy King made a reappearance. Ultimately Raskulls definitely isn't the best game in the world (far from it) but it is a fun way to burn a few hours. I'm giving it a 2.5 out of 5 and it's rated E for Everyone.
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