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REVIEW
Castle Crashers takes Xbox by storm

I can tell you the exact moment of hilarity that Castle Crashers had me hooked.

Hearing the hype over the Xbox Live Arcade release, I wanted to see for myself whether the buzz was warranted. So I downloaded the Castle Crashers demo.

Hacking and slashing my way through the horde of bad guys, who looked like they were drawn with a fresh set of extra-bright Crayola markers, I reached the game’s first boss – a much bigger version of the smaller knights I’d been fighting. Then something started pounding on the door behind him, eventually breaking the door down and crushing the big boss I was getting ready to challenge. When the culprit emerged from the bashed down door, it was a much, much, much bigger version of the knights.

That’s the genius behind Castle Crashers: Just when you think the bosses can’t get any bigger, they get bigger; when you think the game can’t get funnier, it gets funnier. Castle Crashers is constantly trying to one-up itself.

Heck, even the opening credits are amusing – the first screen is a giant chicken getting arrows shot at it.

California game developer The Behemoth is the brain behind the side-scrolling adventure, which sells for 1,200 Microsoft points (about $20 Cdn). Behemoth was also behind Alien Hominid, which I admit I’ve never played but have heard amazing things about.

Castle Crashers follows four knights, blue, green, red and yellow, distinguished by their magical skills. They set out to save four princesses who have been captured and dragged away. What ensues is a good cross between a side-scrolling, hack-and-slash, bash-and-thrash old-school game (a bit like the arcade version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), and an experience-point-collecting, talent-boosting, level-upping RPG (like Final Fantasy).

When I downloaded the full version and played with a friend, it was even more fun.

It’s addictive trying to level up your characters. And if the four knights aren’t enough, there are about 20 extra unlockable characters, including a ninja that shoots shuriken and a fire-breathing dragon.

The game is stellar, especially when you’re playing it by yourself or with friends who are in the same room playing on the same Xbox. However, Castle Crashers does have one glaring black eye: the online play.

Immediately after its release, the game was marred by online glitches, including difficulty getting into matches with other players. The game does not give you the ability to simply invite friends into an ongoing match. If you spot a friend who’s come online, you have to exit your game and start a new one together, which really doesn’t cut it after gamers have been spoiled by much more intuitive online play by other developers. Still, Behemoth has promised to fix its online issues. We can only hope they do it before we move on to the next new thing.

The only other hitch is one that’s inherent to downloadable games. There’s no case and no instruction booklet. This is the type of game that would benefit from a booklet, even if Behemoth makes one available in PDF format on its website.

Despite those small hang ups, this game is well worth the download.

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CAPSULE REVIEW

Game: Castle Crashers

Developer: The Behemoth

Platform: Xbox Live Arcade

Rating: 9/10

Castle Crashers is a hilarious and original game that’s beautifully animated. The controls are easy to pick up and the game’s leveling up feature and unlockable characters give it strong replay value. However, being a game that’s more fun to play with others, it is hampered by online glitches.

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