‘Party Of Sin’ Review – A Jack Of All Trades, Master Of None
Being presented with a game that at its core nature is about the seven deadly sins I did wonder how Crankshaft Games would be able to tell this story in a light that would ingratiate the player to the party’s cause. To their merit they manage to pull out this distinctly biblical theme and make it work within the premise of the game very well, full of tongue in cheek humour throughout the game making for a light hearted but novel story.
The story for Party Of Sin reminds me a lot of Greek Mythology in the way the story theme is told, reminding me a lot of the titan stories. It would appear the sins are protected by Beelzebub himself and therefore have been able to run rampant across the globe, this is all about to change however. A disgruntled band of angels decide to crash the proceedings in Hell just before Satan signs the contract to continue his protection over the sins. This causes Satan to go into a tailspin and for some reason takes it out on the seven deadly sins.
Although I don’t quite follow the dark lords logic and feel he maybe off base on this one, who am I to argue with evil incarnate? Sure his logic sounds flawed but I can’t imagine anyone was going to argue with him – one of the many perks of the job no doubt. Anyway you must escape Hell, and even though you would think a maximum security prison in Hell would be designed to stop you lot escaping… it doesn’t, really it barely slows you down.
The story is interesting and has many great ideas, although I feel it misses the point on a few occasions and is overall quite weak. That said I don’t really think that the story as is actually detracts from the many gameplay elements as it provides the premise, a bit of the humour and the light hearted nature of the game.
The gameplay itself is interesting and Crankshaft Games seem to of set their sights very high with Party Of Sin, maybe a little too high sadly. There is a lot to implement and although I do think Crankshaft Games have done a great job at trying to get everything in place, there are many issues with every element of the game.
It feels that for everything the game does well there is something that stacks up against it, it feels rushed and the cracks begin to show almost immediately. Generally I am not one to be hung up on graphics, I believe a great game is great because of the way it plays and the originally behind the concepts. This said however the graphical design in Party Of Sin feels a little unfinished. I get this feeling as you are presented with a distinct 2.5D style that offers a lot of strong visual impact. It reminds me a great deal of Trine because of this style; however unlike Trine it does not feel polished. I couldn’t help but feel there was something distinctly missing from the graphics.
This is not to say that the visuals in place are bad, they are nice and many of the backdrops are rather interesting especially within Hell. But when you progress through to Purgatory the lack of visuals become all the more apparent. Hell has some nice intricate design elements with the fortresses’ and cells, however Purgatory is distinctly lacking and it shows. I like the theme idea of Purgatory being industrial controlled by a robotic overlord, although a rather unique take – especially when compared to the largely stereotypical Hell setting – the team seem to of lacked a bit on the visuals creating quite a plain looking stage. For me Purgatory was a low point in the game only rescued by the boss battle which I felt was engineered very well.
The gameplay is interesting and borrows the character swapping element from Trine and attempts to elaborate on the idea more. Of course you have a selection of seven here and each with their own unique ability is great, and largely in keeping with their personality. Some are implemented ingeniously with my personal favourite being Sloth. Sloth is generally imagined as just a fat lazy man, Crankshaft Games make it a female who is forever drowsy and has the ability to slow objects and enemies. Sloth was probably my favourite sin but most of them had some logic with them – even if it was largely stereotypical.
Lust was, of course a kind of succubus able to entrance men; Greed was a fat beast able to easily eat enemy’s whole; and Envy was a women who has a green laser beam… yes, like Cyclops… So some of the ideas have been implemented better than others, not that developing a skill for Envy would be easy, but the laser idea is a bit odd.
You would expect that with having such a diverse team the puzzles you are expected to overcome would be very difficult and elaborate; this is not the case however. There are some novel uses of combining the powers of the Sins, but the creativity on the puzzle front does feel distinctly stilted and in many areas almost none existent. It’s true that Party Of Sin is not billed as a puzzle game, however with these characters and the games layout you will forgive me for thinking the puzzle side would be a major part of the game.
Even if Party Of Sin is not billed as a puzzle game the implementation of the puzzles can prove a problem as there is no reset button. In the event of getting to a stage where the puzzle is no longer possible to complete you in fact must just restart the level. It’s annoying but luckily it does not happen all too often, but for the odd time it did it was less than ideal.
For the most part the platforming elements in Party Of Sin are rather fun, they are not all too taxing however and the difficulty level through the game seems rather low. Even though as you progress through the game new ideas get implemented from the machine gunning angels to the addition of a new puzzle dynamic they all add to the game and do add some verity throughout, just do not contribute to the difficultly like you may expect. This occurs as certain Sin combos and poor AI can lead to very underwhelming enemies.
Largely the game runs as expected, however there are some minor glitches in enemy AI that cause the angels to become confused and not quite know if they should be going up or down the ladder, along with some more major boss glitches. The enemy glitches are quite amusing as you stand at the bottom of a ladder just to have them think long and hard about what direction will take them to you. Or how shooting them from afar does not seem to trigger them allowing you to just laser beam them to death.
The bosses for the most part do also suffer from many glitches, one of which I came across when facing off against Michael that would cause him to bug out towards the end of each of his phases, before seeming to all but give up in his last phase. It was disappointing to say the least and the first narwhal boss followed the same very predictable patterns making it quite a dull battle. It’s not all doom and gloom however as Party Of Sin does have a few decent boss battles. The machine that tops off Purgatory is great and offers some very fun phases – just a shame the rest of the zone suffered from lack of ambition – and I did quit enjoy the spider battle also, so some of the bosses play out rather well at least.
The different stages are a nice touch and follow your ascent to Heaven, which I feel was very in keeping with the game overall. I was very surprised to find out Hell and Heaven where the only phases that offered six levels, while Purgatory and Earth only offered a disappointing three levels. Needless to say this really did harpoon my initial estimations of time to complete.
The game length will run for approximately 5 hours, which is not tiny when put in perspective of modern titles but at the same time it’s not particularly long either. The Cooperative mode will bolster this time, but you will just be playing the same levels and although Crankshaft Games have included some interesting co-op powers it still does not add as much to the game as you may hope for.
Party Of Sin is not particularly a bad game, it is a game that has been unfortunate enough to come out after a slew of amazing platforming titles. Party Of Sin is a fun game that can offer a lot of enjoyment for the time you spend on the game and offers a modest challenge whilst doing so. If you are a big fan of the platforming genre but have not played some of the great platforming titles from this year you may be better suited to them. If, however you have and want a new game to sink your teeth into Party Of Sin can fill that platforming hole.
Party Of Sin has only just been released on Steam and is available for $15. Crankshaft Games’ official site can be found here.
Review summary Pros:
Quirky story, Interesting visuals, Novel idea, Great soundtrack, Co-op, controller support
Cons:
Glitchy, Puzzles lack ambition, Visuals feel unfinished, Feels Rushed, Audio cuts unexpectedly, Repetitive combat, AI issues
Rating: 65%
