Developer: Retro64
Steam Release: Jun 2007
Hours Played: 3.1
Similar To: Champions of Breakfast / Glorkian Warrior / Steam and Metal
Rating: 1/5 Parsnips
Although exceedingly average, this game offers something a little different to your average 2D shoot 'em up. Rather than actually kill or destroy anything, an object appears (Zuma-like) on your boat which you then fire upwards to connect to a space that is the same shape as the object you're firing. Some panels move around to make the gameplay varied and there are plenty of mildly useful power-ups. Successful hits are accompanied by a satisfying clunk and a glittering animation. Objects ricochet and bounce wildly all over the place until they find their home or fall into the drink in which case a life is lost. Once a panel has been cleared it disappears until you clear the area. Apart from occasional bonus levels (usually involving an attempt at a trick shot of some kind) you're then shown some pointless stats and whisked off to the next level.
To jazz things up a bit, as well as various power-ups, there are plenty of moving obstacles and a variety of bumpers introduced along the way to bounce objects off from. In Flood mode you play while the screen slowly moves in a vertical direction so that you frantically have to clear panels away before they reach the bottom - if they do then that's game over. In Journey mode the game is mind-numbingly easy and, as you're given plenty of lives, you can take it easy and last a very long time. Flood mode offers more of a challenge. It's quite a satisfying experience, especially when you get the cascade effect and use some of the power-ups, but due to the poorly executed way you progress there really isn't much going for the game. The other two modes are similarly uninspiring.
Menu-wise Venice is not up to much. High Scores take you to a leaderboard with random names while Options allow changes to the basics. Play Now brings a choice of four modes: Journey, Flood, Trick Shots and Survival with the latter two being locked at the start. No level can be replayed and zero information is conveyed to the player outside the playing of the game; you're simply thrown into your next level when you continue. Flood (time-attack mode) is similarly devoid of user-friendly info. The soundtrack is bland pseudo-grand nonsense while sound effects do a good job in immersion value. Direct-hits, fancy shots, missing the target and activation of power-ups are all done with a flourish giving a fruit-machine sound to the proceedings. Graphics are tastefully done with the appropriate European feel, albeit rendered in a fixed low resolution.
If you’ve not already gathered, supplying info on progress and stats is where the game fails. There is simply not enough carrots-on-sticks to make the player want to come back again for more. You complete a level, are shown stats you'll never see again and then taken to the next level - and that's it! There is no indication how much of the game has been completed, no option that allows you to redo levels, no meaningful stats to refer to - nothing! In my opinion, any decent game should give the player some sort of indication of how he's doing and by not including this the developers have simply dropped the ball big-time.
CONCLUSION
Venice Deluxe really does have a lot going for it. Its presentation and artwork gives the game class and the gameplay ideas - with the various bank shots you can perform and the satisfying feeling you get when completing some of those tricky panels etc - really adds plenty of promise. Yet, what is the point to a lot of all this when the game doesn't keep the player informed of basic information? What is the point of even accumulating points and keeping a score!? Good ideas with fun and satisfying gameplay may work up to a point... but when a game falls flat in other important areas it's not giving you the full and rounded package.
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