Even though Voodoo Kid has been out for three years now, I had
never heard of it. Strange since it comes from such an illustrious publisher as
Infogrames, not to mention the fact that the illustrious Hubert Chardot of Alone
in the Dark fame had a hand in it, but there you have it. Probably another
case of mismarketing at its finest. Anyway, I got it from my good friend Alan
McDonald of Playing
Games and promptly started playing.

Voodoo Kid is a horror adventure
game rated for all ages. I believe it was designed for older children, like the
Nancy Drew games, but it can be enjoyed by all ages. A sidenote: It was rated
by the less-uptight European game rating agency, the ELSPA, not the North American
ESRB. The Voodoo Kid says “damn” and “hell” a couple of times,
so if you’re not comfortable letting your kids hear those words, don’t get this
game for them. But go ahead and get it for yourself!

When you start the
game, you get a choice to play as a boy or a girl. It doesn’t really matter which
you choose; your name is “Kid” no matter what. (I chose the girl, of
course.) The opening cut scene shows Kid in bed reading a scary book about Captain
Kidd, and bored, she falls into a troubled sleep. She finds herself trapped in
the hold of a ghost ship, with only a skeletal butler to talk to. She soon learns
that she must find a bunch of map pieces in order to go home again; the alternative
destination is the island of lost souls. We are introduced via cut scenes to the
nemesis, Baron Saturday, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the pirate LeChuck
of Monkey Island fame. The resemblance is purely superficial, however;
this villain has his own personality and agenda. Ultimately, Kid must collect
the map pieces, defeat Baron Saturday, and steer the ship on a course for home.

As
you play the game, Kid must solve problems in each location of the ship to gain
access to the next location. There is no backtracking; she cannot advance until
she has completed puzzles in each location. While not difficult, there are some
red herrings in the game, so it can be a little tricky at times; however, this
is one game where an experienced adventure gamer should not need any hints and
an inexperienced player will never get hopelessly stuck. If you make a wrong move
and get “dead,” you get as many do-overs as you need. I wish every game
had this feature! There are a couple of arcade sequences, but they did not prove
troublesome even for this action-challenged player.

Voodoo Kid is
three years old; the graphics are very nicely done and stand up well now, even
the cut scenes. My only complaint was that the resolution is set at 640×480, so
if your screen resolution is higher, you must either play in a window or change
it manually. On the plus side, the game does not install; it just plays straight
from the CD and only accesses your hard drive for saving/loading. And you can
multi-task with no trouble just by minimizing the game window.

The music
is nice and spooky, sounding as if it were lifted straight from a horror film.
The voice acting is better than average for an adventure game, particularly surprising
considering the poor track record of the French in this area. The sound effects
are superb and never out of place.

All in all, Voodoo Kid is of a
quality seldom seen in titles designed for kids. I would certainly recommend it
to adult players as well; it’s a nice little diversion for when you get tired
of brain-busting puzzles and endless walkthrough consultation.

Final
Grade: A

System Requirements:Pentium
75 MHz or higher (100 MHz recommended)
8 MB RAM (16 MB recommended)
4X CD-ROM
drive
Mouse
Video card, 640×480 resolution
256 colors or higher
Soundblaster-compatible
16-bit sound card
Speakers
Windows 95 or 3.1