Let's get ready to play... WHACKED! The first online 'party' game for Xbox features hilarious and addictive gameplay, a host of weapons and the funniest dialogue you've heard for a while.

If you try to imagine what hell would be like for gameshow contestants, I don't think you'd be far off with Whacked!The bizarre looking host, Van Tastic, is the epitomy of all gameshow hosts and the contestants range from the vain and the timid to the psychotic, exhibitionist and glutton! The graphics and animation on this game are nothing short of outstanding and beneath its initially simple exterior lies incredible character detail, superb animation and some great special effects.

You play one of the seven contestants, battling it out through many rounds to win the mysterious Prize. There are 13 levels to play in and 7 characters to choose from, some of which must be unlocked by playing to the end of the single player Gameshow Mode. Each level has a distinctly different theme and is a brilliantly rendered 3D arena full of humourous touches and the occasional secret. The main aim of the game is to run around each level collecting the assortment of weapons that appear and using them to whack the other contestants into oblivion. There are 6 game types to choose from, 5 of which are multiplayer types. The only single player type is Chicken, where you must kill a number of chickens and collect the stars that they drop without getting pecked to death more than three times! In the rest, you are racing towards a target and the first person to reach it wins.

In Combat, the first person to collect a set number of stars wins the game. Stars appear randomly throughout the level but your richest source is from your opponents - when you are hurt or killed, you drop your own coloured stars. After about 10 seconds these fade to white stars that anyone can pick up, but until them if you do pick them up they won't count towards your own total. The more effective a weapon, the more damage and star loss it will cause and when a contestant dies, a lot of stars are left behind. The rules of the game are nothing short of genius as you must find the balance between collecting stars, whacking other contestants and defending yourself in order to reach the target first. The fact that whacked contestants lose stars mean that it is possible to make a runaway comback from 4th to 1st, because if you whack the leaders enough their total will be brought down to your level as you storm ahead with their stars. In King of the Hill the first person to stand on the glowing green areas for a set number of minutes wins - the area keeps moving and you lose a few seconds when you die, making this a big challenge. In Grab and Run the first person to carry the golden trophy for a set number of seconds wins and carrying the trophy slows you down and reduces your jump distance, although you can still use weapons. In Fragfest it's the contestant with the most kills that wins after the timer runs out and in Dodgeball you must whack your opponents with dodgeballs until they die, it's a last man standing competition and when you whack a contestant you also steal some of their energy. Each of the game types has been very well designed and is tremendous fun.

But as well as the great gameplay, we also have awesome sound and graphics. The quality of the cut scenes and every aspect of the game is excellent, from the scenery and characters to the weapons and effects. Each character is superbly animated and features a theme that is capitalised on in the game. For example, Lance is an incredibly vain bodybuilding lion, so when as he jumps he performs various poses in mid air to flex his muscles! Meanwhile Lucy is an exhibitionist whose modesty is only kept by censor bars, so all of her jump positions are graceful and in most cases suggestive! Van Tastic, who commentates is also very funny, making remarks that mock the contestants. Lucky is an angry Scottish rabbit whose feet were chopped off by a lucky charms factory! When he's in the lead, Van says "Lucky is walking all over the competition." Meanwhile, when the flightless water fowl Eugene is losing, the comment will be"Eugene just can't seem to get off the ground". This attention to detail is just awesome, the humour is great and the voice of Van Tastic is gameshow host perfection.

But by far the best part of the game is the amazing range of weapons on offer. Mallets, staple guns, exploding rubber ducks, homing missiles, mines, beehives, kebab skewers, baseball bats, dodgeballs, electric shock guns and freeze rays are just some of the weapons available. Each one is brilliantly animated with hilarious results. When you whack someone with the mallet they are squashed flat for a few seconds, cartoon style, during which time they can't jump or collect stars and weapons. If you smack someone with the baseball bat (or the Stick of Reason as it is called here!!) then they will be sent flying high into the air and far over to the other side of the level. Meanwhile the supremely satisfying skewers will impale your opponent and send them flying back to be pinned against a wall, screaming in agony! The goodbye doggie is particularly funny as well, it's a rottweiler carrying a stick of dynamite that homes in on the leader and explodes!

As well as this, there are wild cards that affect the game. Power-ups include invisibility, invincibility, the release of loads of stars or star mines that explode when touched by other contestants and more. However, adverse effects like being set on fire can also result. When you're on fire you run around extra fast, screaming until your energy bar is empty at which point you explode! If you can touch a player before that happens, the fire passes to them. Other nasty effects include catching the plague and being turned into a walking time bomb. Specials that affect other players include arming everyone with homing missiles or baseball bats, magnetising the current leader, releasing the finger of death, dropping star mines all over the level and loads more. With all of this going on and loads of power-up and weapon combos to master, you will simply never get tired of the weapons or the whacking!

The levels themselves are great, set in such diverse locations as a pirate ship, high rise buildings, kitchen counter, junk yard, arctic pipeline, a family room on Christmas Eve, a space station and a gladiator arena. Each level is great to look at and features traps to use on your opponents. For example in Jeffrey's Kitchen, switching the garbage disposal on when a player is in the sink will result in them being sucked in and chopped to pieces! Or on in Space Walk, hit the thrusters to knock everyone off the space station to burn up in the Earth's atmosphere! Additions like this give each level extra personality. Joyride is particularly clever as you are running around the back of a giant pickup truck that is in high speed pursuit with a police car on its tail. You can jump between pickup and police car and there is a giant acetylene torch to set your opponents on fire! You can even see the traffic whizzing past if you stop and look. The attention to detail and graphical effects are outstanding.

The Single Player game is not only fun, long and challenging (featuring over 30 increasingly tricky rounds to win), but you get a different ending for each contestant, encouraging you to play it to the end for all seven contestants. There's even a surprise twist ending to enjoy the first time around! All of these clips can be played from the Theater option, once they are unlocked. There are also hilarious commercials that show in between each round including the pig drink Scrapple, How to Walk With a Rock, the Big Stupid Report, Things You Probably Shouldn't Do and Major Woody's Spank Tank. But on multiplayer is where the game really shines, split screen is great fun but live play is by far the best as you whack the senses out of people you just met!! The opportunity for light-hearted banter and fun without too much competitiveness for winning is here, although you always get the occasional idiot who simply has to win every time and crow about it when he does. Fed up with someone who won't shut up? Simply gang up on them with the other players and put them back in their place!! Or just quit and find another session to play in. That's the beauty of Xbox Live.

It's not often that a party game with longevity comes along, but Microsoft have done a fine job on their gameshow from hell with its twisted cartoon style, bizarre characters, awesome range of death-dealing weapons and hilarious dialogue. The incentive to play through Gameshow Mode for each character and the options to play split screen, system link or Xbox Live means you'll be hooked for a long time as Whacked! features the most zany, funny and enjoyable multiplayer mayhem available on any console!

Reviewed by Geoff Holland for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).