Local multiplayer has been with video games since they first came into being. It goes back to Space War, where two players went head to head against one another across a field of space with a gravity well in the middle of it. Then we have Pong, and the industry pretty much came into being once people realised they were playing a digital version of Ping-Pong and the world hasn't been the same since.
Now, we have games like
Nidhogg, Barabari Ball and
Towerfall Ascension that allow us to share the joy that is videogames together on a couch. This is very much a vast improvement on the 13-year-old screaming down a mic during
Call of Duty using words that, quite frankly, no one should utter, let alone a small child (go parenting, eh?) Anyway,
Jump Stars seeks to exploit this newly rediscovered love of local multiplayer action by being a beautifully rendered and visual delight of a game while also being terrific fun to play.
Set over three stages, this two to four-player game from Pixel Blimp has little cube-like creatures that seem to come in four colours and like to wear hats. Don't we all eh, Valve? These little creatures must battle their way through three environments in order to be bestowed the title of Jump Star. All of this can only be done via the careful guidance of the players.
The first stage is a crusher, where heavy weights are dropped from above and the players must dodge them while putting their competitors in danger of meeting a grizzly and very flat end. The player who has died the least amount of times in this stage gains the most points.
The second stage is a platforming game that is similar to
Crossy Road or
Pac Man 256 in that it is constantly scrolling upwards and in order for players to remain in the game they must outrun the moving platforms. Those of us who are adept at platform games will be right at home with this stage. I, I'm afraid to say, am not and I wasn't...
The third stage is a rather dark version of Hot Potato where rather than a potato a stick of dynamite is being carried by one of the players. It is in their interest to rid themselves of this bomb, else it will explode in their face, killing the player character instantly.
As with the best local multiplayer games,
Jump Stars excels at aggravating all of the players as they try to out-do
each other all for the sake of getting extra points above their rivals. Much wailing and yelling will be done when playing
Jump Stars as it borders on the unfair, but it never quite strays into it, which is quite a feat for a multiplayer game such as this.
Jump Stars is due out sometime in 2016 on Xbox One.
