of each in-game element individually before allowing the art team to give it a design. It was also tested without artificial intelligence to prioritize the multiplayer experience and players to adjust to changes in real time without updates to AI. Development was held to a strict schedule, allowing the game to ship three weeks early. Whacked! was originally designed as a PC game, but the game was eventually ported to the Xbox. Development was complicated by two of the three creative designers leaving half way through the project. Whacked! was one of the two games distributed to beta testers for the initial rollout of Xbox Live on the Xbox. The same Live enabled demos were originally given out for one year with the purchase of the Xbox Live starter kit. As of 2010, Xbox Live for the original Xbox was discontinued, ending support for online play of all Xbox titles, including Whacked!. Whacked! was the final project released by Presto Studios before it went out of business in 2002. Whacked! is backward compatible on the Xbox 360, albeit with some glitches, including graphics not loading properly or loading screens not displaying. Reception The game was met with average to mixed reception upon release, as GameRankings gave it a score of 67.28%, while Metacritic gave it 59 out of 100. Critic Jeff Gerstmann praised the game's style and voice acting, but criticized the gameplay and soundtrack, saying that "The single-player mode is plain and simple, and the multiplayer mode, once you get over the novelty of shooting people over the Internet, really lacks depth." Hilary Goldstein of IGN criticizes the drawn-out gameplay and the inconsistency of the gameshow dynamic. References External links 2002 video games Microsoft games Party video games Presto Studios games Seven deadly sins in popular culture Video games developed in the United States Xbox games Xbox-only games