Thank you Gamers Gate for sending us the game!

Woody Two-Legs is a different kind of pirate than the variety we see today. He doesn\'t illegally download music and movies, copy DVDs, or torrent games. But he is the kind of pirate who steals a vast amount of treasure from Davy Jones and gets away with it. Or so he would hope.

Woody Two-Legs: Attack of the Zombie Pirates has a simple premise: keep waves of incoming ships from snagging gold from your island, and if they do, sink them before they exit the map boundaries. After several waves (each packed with enemy ships), a boss will appear for you to contend with. Whether it\'s a Kraken or a large ghost ship, all bosses have a large health bar and require different strategies to finish them off.

When it comes to actually holding off these waves of pirates, you\'ll be aided by the use of power-ups. Destroyed ships have a high chance of dropping three types of crates: positive, negative, or a random selection. Positive power-ups can include a set of homing dolphin torpedoes, a web to stop ships in their tracks, speed boosts, and also different cannon shots that can freeze, burn, or pierce through multiple ships. Negative power-ups can slow down your own ship, speed up enemies, freeze you in place, and even scramble your controls.

Speaking of controls, the ship under your command uses the WASD keys for turning and speed while the arrow keys direct your cannon fire and special weapons. Like an actual ship at the time, the cannons fire on the port and starboard sides which makes for some interesting tactics when it comes to attacking enemies. It took me a few minutes to get accustomed to this layout; I personally found the gamepad to be a better option overall, but the keyboard can work if you lack a supported gamepad.

As you protect your island, you\'ll be racking up score multipliers for leaderboards, possibly the main draw of replaying levels. With the different difficulty options and the ability to play any of the unlocked levels, both casual and the more mainstream gamers can find a reason to check out the game. Even if your ship takes too much damage, you\'ll still respawn after some time to continue defending. Your gold pile carries over to the following levels, so if the enemy is able to steal all your gold, it\'s game over.

Though the game revolves around ghosts and zombie pirates, the overall theme is more charming than anything. Ships do catch fire and explode, and some of the power-ups have low-brow names (Balls of Steel, Blue Balls), but other than that, what\'s here is acceptable for the young crowd as well as the old.

I dug the overall presentation of the game, the music fits and the sound effects were competent. While the graphics won\'t exactly give your machine a workout, the water and flaming ships looked well done as did the explosions. I would\'ve liked a windowed option though, and maybe some mouse control; the keyboard works just fine, but the 360 controller I used offered a more comfortable experience.

So there you have it, an enjoyable arcade shooter that\'s both easy to pick up and play, easy on the system requirements, and easy on the wallet. There\'s a demo out if this sounds like the game for you, and at $5, it\'s a bargain if you\'re looking for a simple gift. For those in the market for a more meatier game in the vein of what Woody Two-Legs offers, I would suggest checking out the recent Sid Meier\'s Pirates title.

-- Jonathan "Keero" Harling

System Requirements:
OS: Windows 7 / Vista / XP
Processor: 2.0 GHz Core Duo or equivalent
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Hard Disk Space: 4 GB
Video Card: 256 MB of dedicated memory with support for pixel shader 3.0. NVIDIA 7800 or equivalent
Sound Card: DirectX9 compatible
Controller Support: 3-button mouse, keyboard and speakers