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NEWS FLASH.... aliens have crash-landed on Earth!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: March 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Our neighbor has a story he always likes to turn people deaf about. When he was 17, and while watching after his grandfather's sheep, he saw something black crawling amongst 'em. That's it smart reader, black sheep! Nope, too bad the sheep were only of the white breed. Anyway, he went to investigate on what that thing might be, but then was hit hard on his head and sent to dream land. Waking up and tied to a bed, he was in a room full of blue lights with disco music. Checking around, he saw fossilized animals from almost every kind, almost as if it was an avid collector's room, or, gasp, an alien's Earth specimen chamber. He then says he could see gas popping out from vents situated all over the circular room, and that's the last thing he remembers before waking up next to his sheep. He thought it was a dream, but to his astonishment, he was absent for a week. Do aliens really exist? Are they really walking amongst us? I'm pretty positive the psychedelic drugs they used to take back in the 70s were some heavy stuff.

With that intriguing premise, many a game developer wanted to milk cash on human beings' love for mysteries. Meet Under the Skin, a light-hearted adoption of the alien premise.

Story

On a planet filled to the gills with aliens, whenever an alien reaches the age of 3, he/she/it has to prove himself/herself/itself by pulling pranks on natives of other planets. Over here on planet Earth, all you have to do at the age of 3 is excrete flawlessly and your mother is proud.

"You're Cosmi, a mischief-making alien sent on a mission to Earth to pull pranks and create chaos. Using the scan gun, you take on the identity of humans and blend in. At your disposal, you have an arsenal of prank weapons including bad karaoke, throwing tacks, or just a good old stinky fart! So grab your prank weapon and raise the panic meter."

Rating: 9.0

Graphics and Constancy

I've always said that a touch of cel-shade makes everything look smoother and jaggie-less. But here the developers didn't make do with a simple brush of cel-shade, but they rather threw the whole bucket, making the game as smooth as silk, though sending a lot of the anti-"kiddy look" extremists throwing up their lunches in the process. Also, you can feel that this game was born to be cel-shade and that any other mode won't do it justice. Wacky aliens and cel-shade go hand in hand like peanut butter and jelly.

The frame rate rarely stutters, and when it does it barely hinders the game play.

All in all, an area that this game excels at.

Rating: 9.0

Audio

La, la, la, la, la, la, la! Huh? Oh, sorry, I was just whistling one of this game's many gripping themes. I haven't heard anything this spellbinding lately, and judging by my reaction, you should be excited. The music is funky, fitting of this sort of game, and the sounds are just wacky, again fitting this game's nature. Use the utilized-to-death boxing glove and you'll hear its thump. Unleash the stampede of elephants and you'll feel as if you were in a jungle. You get the idea.

Rating 9.0

Game Play

Here we are. The main offering of any game is upon us. How does this game fare up to its wacky alien theme? Let's find out.

First off, you're given multiple choices, two of which are blocked on your first visit to the game, to choose from. Personally, every time I'm here, I check out the game trailers, especially Viewtiful Joe 2's. That game is gonna be absolutely gorgeous. Anyway, back to our game. There is Story mode, Versus mode, and two further modes.

Story mode consists of 8 levels standing between you and the ending sequence. Each level has its own theme. You have your casino level, Wild West level, Egyptian era level, and the essential Raccoon City level.

"Wait a second! Did you just say Raccoon City!?" Yes sir, Raccoon City is here, fleshed out with a nuisance roaming freely around its map. That's true, Nemesis is here, and your objective is to drain him out of coins. You see, the main common thing between all objectives is coin collection. Pull a prank on someone and they'll release coins. To pull a prank, you have to be equipped with 'em, and if there's none left in your inventory, you have to abduct someone using your ray gun and transform into him/her by standing under the transformation zones dotted around the map. Each person comes equipped with 5 pranks, and some come equipped with none, so it helps that you can see what each person bears before snatching him/her.

Pranks include flesh-eating sharks, zap bombs, coin multipliers, large, and I do mean large, hamburgers, and a plethora of other wacky stuff. Also, sometimes you'll have a virus among your pranks, and you'll have to quickly get rid of it by both pressing on it and rotating your left analogue stick or by capturing a new host and transforming into it.

Get beaten once, and you'll be in your trousers (or bikini, or whatever depending on who you are). Get beaten twice, and you'll be in your alien form with humans all wanting to have a slice off you. On a lot of levels, you'll be up against another alien, with your objective being either beating him with your coin count when the time's up, or just reaching a certain coin count before the bell rings. That's pretty much the gist of it.

Anyway, the main fun course, to me at least, comes from trying to beat your own personal records or going for the coveted "A"s. If you're anything like me, you'll be spending no less than 20 hours on this gem, but if you're like my brother and get bored easily, then you'll be done with ten some hours.

Rating: 9.0

Life Span

Like I said before, if you're into replaying a game to top the charts and snap those "A"s and not just beating it once, then you'll want this game. Otherwise, the life span is cut immensely.

The Finisher

If you're someone who loves to take on a spiky challenge to test your patience, wits, and skill, then you'll be spending lots of time with this game, especially with the further things you unlock. But, if you're someone who just wants to finish the game proper once and leave, then this game is a rent for you.

Rating: 9.0

demo

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 10
Date: November 07, 2004
Author: Amazon User

ive only played the demo, but this game is so fun! I like the prank moves!!

Not deep, but it is fun

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: April 08, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Under The Skin is a quirky game. You play as an alien who usually tries from people in the levels by using certain tools and abilities. There are a variety of different levels ranging from Raccoon City to a casino level. The graphics aren't bad and the music is nice. The problem is that the objectives are not diverse enough. The challenge usually is to get a certain number of coins before an opponent does. This is a fun game but could be much funner if the objectives were more varied.

Under The Skin

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 16, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Under the skin is a game for all ages. On easy i finisheb it in about 2 hours but on normal it is really hard. Iv finished it on easy but still dont have all the weapons which include: tank, karaoke, farts, sharks, t-rexs, bowling balls on fire and LOTS more. Overall i would think this is a game for the whole family and even for 4 year olds because there is no killing, they just appear somewhere or get up.

If this was a finished game it would have sold million+

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 08, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I liked this game, but there really isn't much to it. At first glance the game has many parallels to Katamari Damacy (colorful and cute graphics with an amusing playstyle), but the sense of urgency or replayability in Katamari is absent here.
Ultimately, the shallowness of the game makes it seems more like a tech demo.
Basically you are an alien who steals people's identity to play pranks on them. After you change into an identity all you have to do is approach a Stiffy Stifferson and choose one of up to 5 amusing pranks at your disposal. If you successfully set the prank they will drop coins, if they get hit with more than one they'll drop more & larger coins. That's really all there is to it. Sometimes you'll have to get a certain number of coins; other times get more than someone else or get them down to 0 coins.
The game looks and sounds great, but the focus of the game - a two player duel style (with a single player experience tossed in) severely hurts it. If this was a fully fleshed out single player experience first then it would have been a million selling hit. As it was for release it is a good 8 map multiplayer game. Certainly not a bad game, but nothing to write home about.

Quirky, but a good way to kill some time

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 22, 2007
Author: Amazon User

It's weird, but in a good way. I initially purchased it only for a resident evil related level, but once I picked it up, I couldn't put it down. The plot makes no sense, but it's no more nonsensical than Katamari Damacy (which I also love). If you want something very different, give this a go.

A Little Enjoyable

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 16, 2008
Author: Amazon User

What this game looks like, is what you'll get. If it looks like an OK game like it did for me, it will be. If you're still a kid, and you're still at the age where other people's pain and toilet humor are still hilarious, the game will be hilarious. So, in other words, I reccomend the game your young kids, and warn any teenagers that are interested in this game- this is a game you play when you are bored and have nothing better to do, and even then, it won't entertain you much. It is only good for a few short rounds. From then, you start losing interest. Last but not least, I extremely disreccomend the game for anyone of great seriousness and/or over-maturity. This game it OK, but not good.

Under your skin.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 03, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I first played a demo of Under The Skin a couple of years ago, and liked it. now that i had the resources to get it, i figured i'd try it. The game can be fun, but you can easily get tired of it quickly, and even beat it in under an hour. The gameplay consists of playing pranks on humans, stealing their images and dodging their fists. The game also has more gameplay modes like cooperative and versus modes, and up to two can play at once. Not a great game, but it's only $20, so if you wanna get in trouble without the consequence, Under The Skin is for you.

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