Numbers first: Voodoo Vince came out on the original Xbox on September 23, 2003, in North America. Almost 14 years later, Beep Games announced Voodoo Vince: Remastered for April 18, 2017, on Xbox One and Windows 10.
The announced spec sheet: 1080p resolution at 60 frames per second, high-definition art and Xbox Play Anywhere support. Translated from the jargon: one purchase works for the console and the PC. The classic gameplay and original soundtrack would remain intact, which says a lot about the approach. It is not a remake, it is a restoration.
A bit of context. Beep Industries, today Beep Games, was founded in 2000 by Clayton Kauzlaric, and Voodoo Vince was the studio’s only console game. The protagonist is a cloth voodoo doll, and the game’s central idea is as simple as it is morbid: Vince hurts himself to harm the enemies around him. At the time, Vince was treated as one of the first Xbox’s mascots, a humorous counterpoint to the action games that dominated the console.
The original’s reception was good without being thunderous: an average of 73 on Metacritic and 76.87% on GameRankings. The game later came out in Europe, in October 2003, and in Japan, in July 2004.
What came next
The remaster came out on the promised date. In practice, Beep redid the visual elements, swapped the loading screens and shortened their wait time, without touching the gameplay. Anyone expecting gameplay changes got nothing new; anyone wanting to revisit the 2003 game on a modern screen got exactly that. It is the kind of release that measures success in preservation, not innovation, and by that standard it delivered what it promised.
Source: Xbox and Beep Games.
Doutor Overclock
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