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The answer, of course, is obvious.
Nevertheless, the Internet has been abuzz with this rivalry since shortly after the dawn of time - or, if you believe Wikipedia, some time in the early 21st Century. Any nerd in the know subscribes to one camp or the other. Now, developer, Blazing Lizard, has provided an opportunity to settle the matter once-and-for-all, in a(n un)sportsman-like match of the game of kings: dodgeball.
While Pirates Vs. Ninjas Dodgeball is going to be an Xbox Live Arcade title, it looked pretty nice at EIEIO and had more polish and style that your typical XBLA title. It has a definite cartoon-like graphics style with some stereotypical characters, but each one has aspects that make them unique, both in appearance and in skills.
The game has various environments to play in, each with interactive elements. As in normal dodgeball, the idea is to hit opposing players with the ball in order to tag them "out." Unlike normal dodgeball, however, it takes more than a single hit to be tagged out. Each time a player is hit, a meter depletes; when that meter is empty, that player is removed from play. This game mechanic make the game more forgiving and allows the game to last longer. In addition to hitting other players with the ball, however, you can also knock them silly with various melee attacks. These attacks will not ever remove players from the game, but they can stun opposing players, allowing you to gain control of the ball and hit them with it without them blocking or countering. The game will support up to eight players - four local players and four online players.
In addition to letting players control teams of Pirates and Ninjas, there are three other teams that can be controlled: Zombies, Robots and a third team that has yet to be revealed. Heavy speculation among members of the press was that the yet unrevealed team would likely be monkeys. In response to this assumption, the developer showing us the game assured us that the final team was, in fact, not monkeys, but was something else that we would not guess. At that, one of us guessed that perhaps it was monkeys. The developer said that no, that was not it either. This confused us quite a bit, as they already had Ninjas and Pirates; the next obvious team would, of course, be Monkeys. One burst out with a sudden realization that the final team must be either Monkey Ninjas or, perhaps, Monkey Pirates. This, too, was discounted, leaving us all scratching our heads. I inquired whether the yet undisclosed team flung poo, but I guess the developer didn't hear me, as he continued on.
Not one to post a story without the scoop, I researched this matter fully, putting the Internet's best research tools to work. In other words, I used Google Sets, plugged in the team names that came up, and determined what would be most likely selected as a team. Requesting a small Google Set based on Ninjas, Pirates, Zombies and Robots resulted in 14 results when I did my research. The first four were the four I had entered, as would be expected. Not very surprisingly, the fifth result was, in fact, monkeys. Disregarding that result for the moment, the next result was, ummm... books. Well, no... that wouldn't make for a very exciting team. Let's see... there's "universalism"... no, too conceptual... "Warren Ellis" - well, there's a comic artist by that name and a musician, both of which are somewhat scary-looking on their Wikipedia pages, but that's only two people, hardly enough for a dodgeball team... "Frankenstein" - could be... but he'd need a posse of teammates to make a team... Believe it or not, the tenth item returned is, "More Books" - still, no... That leaves us with the final four items, "mischief", "nin", "graffitti" and "shows." Unless "nin" is referring to "Nine Inch Nails," I'm thinking that's a no-go, too. So, based on Google Sets, I would say that it is possible that the missing team could be Frankenstein and his friends (perhaps Wolfman, Dracula and the Mummy?) or, of course, it could be Monkeys.
Everyone's favorite on-staff psychic, Psibabe, said that it's most likely Aliens, which would make sense, except that Google Sets didn't even consider it. I suppose only time will tell... Pirates Vs. Ninjas Dodgeball is set to release sometime soon. |
