While controlling your teams is horrendous and the camera angles make me want to put the game down quite promptly, I do have to give the game its dues for its cute and endearing graphics. They’re quite nicely rendered for an Xbox Live Arcade title, and very true renditions of how the legions of followers of their favorite factions often imagine them. When you can get a good look at character models, they’re adorable. Environments are fairly varied and colorful, and there are no hints of slow-down. Gameplay is relatively smooth, and without hiccups. It’s a shame that the meat of the game makes everything else a moot point.

If you don’t want to play the story mode, you can play local versus or Xbox Live multi-player matches. However, the only differences are the fact that instead of playing against a computer that rarely makes mistakes, you are pit against friends or strangers who are at the same disadvantages as you are. Multi-player is smooth and runs nicely, but there is quite the dearth of online opponents to choose from. That could stem from the fact that this game is quite the waste of time.

There are 12 Achievements to acquire, ranging from finishing story mode with the group of your choice, catching a ball, countering shots, and performing a power shot. They most definitely are achievements and should be touted as such, because making much progress at all in this game should be considered quite the honor.

Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball set out to be an innovative, humorous game of dodgeball intended for multi-player parties and to poke fun at the war between pirates, ninjas, zombies, and robots. What it accomplishes is hardly worth taking a look at. The addition of manual camera adjustment and more responsive controls would have made this mini brawler a joy to partake in. Perhaps a sequel would learn from its predecessor’s mistakes, because it has quite a lot of potential. The battle between childhood heroes wages on, perhaps to resurface in a better game in the future that’s actually fun.