In a world of 3D worlds, dynamic lighting and intense shadows we see far too few old school retro style platformer titles. With the advent of Xbox Live Arcade, WiiWare and the PlayStation Network we’re seeing a few new indy developers getting into the game.
Castle Crashers, developed by The Behemoth, is an upcoming side scroller of cutely neat beat ’em up action on Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA). The game will be 1,200 Microsoft Points (USD $15) and will launch August 27th, very soon. This side scroller allows for 4-player action, local or over the Xbox Live system with your friends and there is another mode for battling each other known as Arena.
This is like an artistically rendered version of Golden Axe with Knights! There are many different knights, each with their own powers of attack, Blue Knights can attack with Ice while the Orange Knight attacks with Fire, the Ninja Knight fires shurikens and a host of other unique Knights do battle with their own methods of madness.
If you checkout The Behemoth‘s Castle Crasher Website you’ll see a host of images and their recent trailer showing off the action. It’s safe to say, this is going to be a fast paced slightly silly slightly retro beat ’em up game paying homage to Golden Axe, Double Dragon and TMNT (original arcade one at least) with the graphic style of Alien Hominid HD, their last title.
Stay tuned, we’ll be announcing a contest to win a copy of Castle Crashers in the very near future!
Veterans to the rescue!
Maybe I’m not a ‘true’ veteren but I’ve been writing in for over a year now so I’m starting to fall into that category, I guess.
Anyway, I’m waiting for the plane to leave after a week’s vacation in Sicilly which I used to relax on the beach and at the pool but also to give Metal Gear Solid another go (hurray for the Vita!). I played through MGS3 (19.5 hours – embarrassing) and I really enjoyed it despite my two previous unsuccessful attempts to get into the game. Do you guys have any experience with the series?
@qotw
You mentioned Red Dead Redemption in the episode. I played tens of hours of the game, including MP (Platinum, yo!) and I had to play in the violence-less mode because it was impossible to focus on anything else with people riding around and shooting each other in the other mode. I tend not to play MP games a lot but when I do I try to get together with people from specific communities from podcasts and message boards. This decreases the number of unpleasant encounters.
Hey guys, I didn’t comment on the last two because I felt that I had answered the QotW and didn’t have anything to add.
@Dungeon Keeper: I think the Mobile version of the original is very poor with these arbitrary time restraints. I agree that players get very tired of being nickeled and dimed. It doesn’t feel like a real game with these limitations.
@Bartle: I’d like to second Jordan’s comments that your segment on this was so through that I can’t really add anything myself without being a broken record on this topic. I really do feel that the Free-to-play games need to change and find a different way to work.
@QotW: I have to second what Pawwel said, I tend to stick with a close nit group of people who I know relatively well. I remember once trying Red Dead Redemption in MP and got sniped three times by the same person in the starting area, I quit MP of that game right there. I feel like Paul in that I am getting older but also been quite content to play single player. I found the WoW experience to be “Too many people in the pool”. I’m not very comfortable even with the anonymity of the internet with just talking with random people. Perhaps because I never forget these are real people I am talking to and never just a handle and avatar.
There was also a StarCraft II custom Map game called ‘Mafia’ that my Polycast group played. In it you are a Town trying to find the Mafia members before they kill all the Towns people during the night. There was a number of trolls going on with that game, those not taking it seriously and just trying to ruin it for everyone that did cause me to quit a few times.
So yes the few times I have done Online MP where random strangers were involved I have quit. Hence why I stick to people I know well enough.
I wanted to add a question:
You talked about Rockstar Games in a previous episode and how the hero dies no matter what. I remember at the time it upset many people that this happened. It also happened in other Rockstar Games, *spoiler* LA Noir *spoiler* and I’ve been told each GTA protagonist dies by the time you get to the next game. So I wondered why when people don’t want the “cliché” happy ending and they get the Hero dies ending instead, that they get upset about. They can’t seem to make up their mind if they want a good ending or a “bad” ending (by that I mean the Hero dies or something similar).