Pirates Vs Ninjas Dodgeball

Which is better? Pirates or Ninjas? There’s only one way to find out…. FIGHT!

No, wait, that’s Harry Hill. In this case, the one way to find out is to play Dodgeball. Obviously.

Pirates Vs Ninjas Dodgeball is exactly what it says on the tin. You play dodgeball. You can be a pirate or a ninja. You can be a zombie or a robot as well but Pirates Vs Ninjas Vs Robots Vs Zombies Dodgeball just didn’t cut it as a title.

The single-player game is simple, playing as one of the four groups you play dodgeball against the other three through something that is apparently a story. I’ll admit now that I skipped most of this after the first part of the pirate story involved a pirate called Samantha raising zombies. Zombies which, although being a pirate and possessing a cutlass, you have to defeat by throwing balls at. Single player is fun in small doses but is pretty samey throughout and the AI, even on easy, can seem to gang-up on you something rotten.

No, this game comes alive in multiplayer – either online or on-couch the game is a blast. You can choose to play through the story modes in co-op, or have a traditional adversarial match. I’ve played through a good chunk of the story in co-op and it is fun. It’s still a little bit repetitive but it’s more fun that just plain old single player – bearing in mind that the story takes you through three rounds of 2 vs 2, 3 vs 3 and 4 vs 4 you do slightly start to lose the will to live the further in you get. The best thing, in my opinion, to do with this game is to take yourself on Live with 7 friends and have a few manic rounds of 4 vs 4 to lighten up the evening.

Now, this isn’t one-hit-and-you’re-out dodgeball, this is whittle-down-my-energy-bar dodgeball which does, at least, add some longevity to the rounds as all too often when playing against the AI you’re pelted with balls and special moves like there’s no tomorrow. The arenas you fight in are varied and provide trees, gravestones and countless other things you can hide behind to evade a ball in the face.

Ultimately, this game does little to settle the Pirate-Ninja debate. You will never truely establish which is better as they play the same, so personal preference is going to choose which side of the fence you come down on. It never really feels like playing as any particular group gives you an edge – you’d expect zombies to be slower, ninjas to be faster, robots a bit stronger and I haven’t thought of anything for the pirates – but they’re not. This, I suppose, levels the playing field for multiplayer matches meaning that if one of your mates is always playing ninjas then they don’t actually have any sort of advantage, it’s purely down to your skill with the balls.


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