Thursday, September 11, 2008
Rock Band + Colbert = :)
Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report has just gotten his song Charlene (I'm Right Behind You) into Rock Band as a free downloadable song. I quickly grabbed it upon hearing this and found it quite a good song. Though lack of the video does decrease it's overall effect - it still is a great addition to any Rock Band library.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Castle Crashers has an Insane Mode!
Hey guess what?! Castle Crashers has an Insane Mode. Which loads of you may have heard something about, I bet a good portion can't find it.
When you start up your normal quest, yes you can use your normal guy (in other words, you don't need to start a new knight) press down. If you have beaten the game as this guy you will be able to move lower on the map from the "Home Castle" area and the "Barbarian Boss" spot. From there you will move down into that cave in the ditch area.
Selecting it makes that spot light on fire for the remainder of the time your in insane mode - so you know which mode your in. Though each time you go into this mode it shows the opening scene. A quick way to get past this is by hitting Start and then Return to Map. Then you can proceed along to where you were next. Exiting is the same so don't think you need to go back to normal to leave properly.
This is great because having my guy at the high 40's in level and not being able to continue on and level up without using the Catfish of Batboss tricks was awful. Now I'm hitting like one new level at each new spot.
Happy Crashing
When you start up your normal quest, yes you can use your normal guy (in other words, you don't need to start a new knight) press down. If you have beaten the game as this guy you will be able to move lower on the map from the "Home Castle" area and the "Barbarian Boss" spot. From there you will move down into that cave in the ditch area.
Selecting it makes that spot light on fire for the remainder of the time your in insane mode - so you know which mode your in. Though each time you go into this mode it shows the opening scene. A quick way to get past this is by hitting Start and then Return to Map. Then you can proceed along to where you were next. Exiting is the same so don't think you need to go back to normal to leave properly.
This is great because having my guy at the high 40's in level and not being able to continue on and level up without using the Catfish of Batboss tricks was awful. Now I'm hitting like one new level at each new spot.
Happy Crashing
Monday, September 8, 2008
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Review: Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise - 8
If your one of the many who didn't play the original Viva Pinata or find that it's just a child's game, you really don't know what your missing. Though now's your chance to see what this whole thing is about with Rare's sequel to the first: Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise.
Viva Pinata is all about taking care of a garden full of Pinata pets with focus on collecting them and making them romance. Like a real garden, you'll also be able to grow many different types of plants and decorate it with various materials and objects. Though the main point is to have specific items in your garden to attract foreign pinatas and get them to move in. In VP2 you are doing manly the same thing. Which, if your just coming from playing the first one; you might find yourself bored now. The biggest problem with this sequel is that it feels more like an expansion pack that a true stand alone game.
Like it's predecessor, your main goal is to gain levels by growing new plants and trees and making new pinatas come and join your garden. With each new level you will find that you can buy more things, get new equipment and sometimes get more garden space. The game works well in dishing out the experience points, rewarding you each time you see a new pinata, each time one visits and lots for making new pinatas residents and then romancing them. The main point of this whole thing is to keep expanding your garden and get newer and more valuable pinatas. The next main thing it wants you to focus on is romancing pinatas, which involves them having a baby. To do this you must meet each pinatas romance requirements before they can get busy. Romance requirements can be anything from eating a seed to eating a pinata.
What was a major flaw in the first game was all the loads screens it had for even tiny things like buying one seed. You have to open the menu, go to the next menu, wait for it to load, go through some dialogue then go through the stores menu, then buy the seed. VP2 fixes this issue a bit buy letting you have a seed buying tool in your first menu, so there's no load screens if your just buying some seeds. What makes it that much better is if your over a plant and go into this tool; it opens up a selection of fertilizers instead of seeds. This tool makes things much faster and your not always being forced to waste time at a million loads screens.
The thing with this game is that your always multitasking four or five things are once. You may have just planted a tree, so you need to keep an eye on it so it doesn't dry out, but at the same time you might be trying to romance two pinatas, but at the same time one of your pinatas is getting eaten. So the game can get quite hectic, quite fast. This thing alone is probably the biggest note to set it back for being thought of as a game for kids. It require some serious thought to how things work and lots of focus on many things at once. The thing that probably makes this game the hardest is the idea of sour pinatas, which try to ruin your garden. Every now and then you'll have to kill one by breaking it open with your shovel, just to find it laid two weeds. If you don't get rid of those weeds fast, your gonna have an infestation on your hands.
One thing for people who don't want any of this hassle is a new mode called Play For Fun; where you just get to do whatever you want with unlimited money and no worry for any sour pinatas coming in. This also makes getting new pinatas easier so it essentially just makes the game loads more easy and stress free. Though you won't be able to get any of the achievements when playing this mode and it takes a lot of the rewards out of it. Playing the main mode can be more fun because your constantly being rewarded for all your efforts, which is a nice thing to have.
Probably the biggest difference from the first game is the ability to leave your garden to go to different regions. Some pinatas will only be in the two outside regions: Pinarctic and Dessert Desert and you must go there to get these pinatas. When you in the region you must bait traps to capture the pinatas, like other pinatas you will need to check to see what kind of bait work for which pinata. After catching a pinata you can bring it to your garden and begin working on meeting its resident requirements. This works as an good idea but you'll find yourself ignoring those areas a lot of the time because there's plenty of pinatas to get in the main area. It also doesn't get new pinatas as much as the main region does. This is probably the biggest reason this game feels more like an expansion.
Another big difference this game has over it's prequel is the inclusion of Pinata Vision. This uses the xbox live vision camera to scan cards in order to get special things in your garden. Any card you find can be held up to the camera and whatever the card if for, will plunk down into your garden. Now this works fine in theory but it's much to easy to just find a bunch of high level pinata cards online and use them in order to boost your level. Which is fine if you want to just breeze your way to the top level, but it takes away most of the gameplay.
This game also supports online play with up to four people. So now you can have co-op gardeners going around helping you out. This is a great addition for sometimes the stress of a huge garden can become over bearing and it's nice to have a friend to cut some of the work off you. It also has the option of limiting your guests controls so that they don't just got around killing all your pinatas. This idea is good overall and can be fun if you have people who you know won't be jerks.
Apart from this game being looked down upon from the 'core gamer' Viva Pinata 2 is a great game and will get you addicted if your new to it. It shouldn't be looked at as a kids game because a lot of small kids probably wouldn't be able to take all the stress that can build up if you get lazy. So it's ok to like this game and still be into Gears of War. Though if your into the more fast paced games out there and don't really like games like Harvest Moon, you probably won;t gravitate towards this game. Don't take me wrong, this game doesn't match Harvest Moon, but it's probably the kind of game that would be closest to this, specifically the farming part.
Overall Viva Pinata is a fun and good experience for all. You'll most likely find that you won't have this game and the people who are into it, very much like it. Though it does feel more like it should have been an addition to the first, or maybe some parts should have been DLC, you can't really get to angry at that fact since this game sells for budget price at $40. If the beautiful graphics don't pull you in, hopefully the cute and fun pinatas will.
8/10
Viva Pinata is all about taking care of a garden full of Pinata pets with focus on collecting them and making them romance. Like a real garden, you'll also be able to grow many different types of plants and decorate it with various materials and objects. Though the main point is to have specific items in your garden to attract foreign pinatas and get them to move in. In VP2 you are doing manly the same thing. Which, if your just coming from playing the first one; you might find yourself bored now. The biggest problem with this sequel is that it feels more like an expansion pack that a true stand alone game.
Like it's predecessor, your main goal is to gain levels by growing new plants and trees and making new pinatas come and join your garden. With each new level you will find that you can buy more things, get new equipment and sometimes get more garden space. The game works well in dishing out the experience points, rewarding you each time you see a new pinata, each time one visits and lots for making new pinatas residents and then romancing them. The main point of this whole thing is to keep expanding your garden and get newer and more valuable pinatas. The next main thing it wants you to focus on is romancing pinatas, which involves them having a baby. To do this you must meet each pinatas romance requirements before they can get busy. Romance requirements can be anything from eating a seed to eating a pinata.
What was a major flaw in the first game was all the loads screens it had for even tiny things like buying one seed. You have to open the menu, go to the next menu, wait for it to load, go through some dialogue then go through the stores menu, then buy the seed. VP2 fixes this issue a bit buy letting you have a seed buying tool in your first menu, so there's no load screens if your just buying some seeds. What makes it that much better is if your over a plant and go into this tool; it opens up a selection of fertilizers instead of seeds. This tool makes things much faster and your not always being forced to waste time at a million loads screens.
The thing with this game is that your always multitasking four or five things are once. You may have just planted a tree, so you need to keep an eye on it so it doesn't dry out, but at the same time you might be trying to romance two pinatas, but at the same time one of your pinatas is getting eaten. So the game can get quite hectic, quite fast. This thing alone is probably the biggest note to set it back for being thought of as a game for kids. It require some serious thought to how things work and lots of focus on many things at once. The thing that probably makes this game the hardest is the idea of sour pinatas, which try to ruin your garden. Every now and then you'll have to kill one by breaking it open with your shovel, just to find it laid two weeds. If you don't get rid of those weeds fast, your gonna have an infestation on your hands.
One thing for people who don't want any of this hassle is a new mode called Play For Fun; where you just get to do whatever you want with unlimited money and no worry for any sour pinatas coming in. This also makes getting new pinatas easier so it essentially just makes the game loads more easy and stress free. Though you won't be able to get any of the achievements when playing this mode and it takes a lot of the rewards out of it. Playing the main mode can be more fun because your constantly being rewarded for all your efforts, which is a nice thing to have.
Probably the biggest difference from the first game is the ability to leave your garden to go to different regions. Some pinatas will only be in the two outside regions: Pinarctic and Dessert Desert and you must go there to get these pinatas. When you in the region you must bait traps to capture the pinatas, like other pinatas you will need to check to see what kind of bait work for which pinata. After catching a pinata you can bring it to your garden and begin working on meeting its resident requirements. This works as an good idea but you'll find yourself ignoring those areas a lot of the time because there's plenty of pinatas to get in the main area. It also doesn't get new pinatas as much as the main region does. This is probably the biggest reason this game feels more like an expansion.
Another big difference this game has over it's prequel is the inclusion of Pinata Vision. This uses the xbox live vision camera to scan cards in order to get special things in your garden. Any card you find can be held up to the camera and whatever the card if for, will plunk down into your garden. Now this works fine in theory but it's much to easy to just find a bunch of high level pinata cards online and use them in order to boost your level. Which is fine if you want to just breeze your way to the top level, but it takes away most of the gameplay.
This game also supports online play with up to four people. So now you can have co-op gardeners going around helping you out. This is a great addition for sometimes the stress of a huge garden can become over bearing and it's nice to have a friend to cut some of the work off you. It also has the option of limiting your guests controls so that they don't just got around killing all your pinatas. This idea is good overall and can be fun if you have people who you know won't be jerks.
Apart from this game being looked down upon from the 'core gamer' Viva Pinata 2 is a great game and will get you addicted if your new to it. It shouldn't be looked at as a kids game because a lot of small kids probably wouldn't be able to take all the stress that can build up if you get lazy. So it's ok to like this game and still be into Gears of War. Though if your into the more fast paced games out there and don't really like games like Harvest Moon, you probably won;t gravitate towards this game. Don't take me wrong, this game doesn't match Harvest Moon, but it's probably the kind of game that would be closest to this, specifically the farming part.
Overall Viva Pinata is a fun and good experience for all. You'll most likely find that you won't have this game and the people who are into it, very much like it. Though it does feel more like it should have been an addition to the first, or maybe some parts should have been DLC, you can't really get to angry at that fact since this game sells for budget price at $40. If the beautiful graphics don't pull you in, hopefully the cute and fun pinatas will.
8/10
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
First take on VP Trouble in Paradise
- 3 Pinata Vision cards with it
- I need the camera
- Says it requires the camera, it lied
- Bilingual on the box makes it cluttered
- More cut scenes
- Tutorial mode
- WHIRIM IS NOT STARTER PINATA?!!
- Not sure if I prefer this box art over the first
- 48 hour live card, useless
- New pinatas are cute so far
- Don't like the surrounding area of the garden as much as first one
- I should go beat Castle Crashers
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Paradise has some troubles
With Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise now out (I'll be getting it tomorrow due to Canada getting games a day after they launch) I thought I would share my thoughts on the whole vision camera and card stuff that Microsoft is doing with it's game.
The Xbox Live vision camera didn't get huge praise probably because it just seemed like another way Microsoft was getting some money out of you. Which can be a valid argument since it goes for $50 new here and there's only a few games that actually utilize it. Besides being able to video chat with a friend and seeing the actual person instead of a gamerpic in some games, it hasn't really done anything ground breaking. Though thinking that it's only a camera, there isn't much it can do besides Eyetoy like games such as Totemball.
One of the more note worthy tasks the camera was put up to recently was back with Burnout Paradise. Each time you got a take down on someone (destroying their car) the camera would take a quick photo of them. This was a good idea because you got to see your friend's expression at the moment his car got mangled. Other than that, I haven't run into anything exceptional from this.
What VP2 is doing seems like a really interesting idea that if done properly, could really be a cool thing to be able to play around with. What Microsoft wants you to do is print out Cards or put them on a image viewing device (like a PSP or iPod). Once done getting your card(s) you can hold them up to the camera and it will scan them and plunk whatever the card is for down into your garden. This way you can share cards with your friends and unlock content that wouldn't normally be in the game for you without owning the camera.
Strangely enough VP2 was now the selling point I needed to get a vision camera. So if your on my friends list, look forward to crazy stupid pictures of me.
This fact seems like it could open up new forms of uses for the vision camera. Being able to scan certain things could really get people into buying more out of game content. For example, you could be using this instead of having to type in a code to get MS points or even game content like Rock Band songs. For people owning the camera, they wouldn't need to type in those 25 character codes anymore, but people without the camera are stuck doing that.
Hopefully Microsoft has some good ideas for the camera to get more people into buying them. With that, only more vision camera services can come.
The Xbox Live vision camera didn't get huge praise probably because it just seemed like another way Microsoft was getting some money out of you. Which can be a valid argument since it goes for $50 new here and there's only a few games that actually utilize it. Besides being able to video chat with a friend and seeing the actual person instead of a gamerpic in some games, it hasn't really done anything ground breaking. Though thinking that it's only a camera, there isn't much it can do besides Eyetoy like games such as Totemball.
One of the more note worthy tasks the camera was put up to recently was back with Burnout Paradise. Each time you got a take down on someone (destroying their car) the camera would take a quick photo of them. This was a good idea because you got to see your friend's expression at the moment his car got mangled. Other than that, I haven't run into anything exceptional from this.
What VP2 is doing seems like a really interesting idea that if done properly, could really be a cool thing to be able to play around with. What Microsoft wants you to do is print out Cards or put them on a image viewing device (like a PSP or iPod). Once done getting your card(s) you can hold them up to the camera and it will scan them and plunk whatever the card is for down into your garden. This way you can share cards with your friends and unlock content that wouldn't normally be in the game for you without owning the camera.
Strangely enough VP2 was now the selling point I needed to get a vision camera. So if your on my friends list, look forward to crazy stupid pictures of me.
This fact seems like it could open up new forms of uses for the vision camera. Being able to scan certain things could really get people into buying more out of game content. For example, you could be using this instead of having to type in a code to get MS points or even game content like Rock Band songs. For people owning the camera, they wouldn't need to type in those 25 character codes anymore, but people without the camera are stuck doing that.
Hopefully Microsoft has some good ideas for the camera to get more people into buying them. With that, only more vision camera services can come.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Review: Castle Crashers - 8
Castle Crashers is the brightly animated 2D beat 'em up by game developers; The Behemoth and runs for 1200 Microsoft points. The Behemoth was well known for it's first game Alien Hominid HD on the Xbox Live Arcade. It does a good job bringing humor and platforming to a standard beat 'em up style that you would think wouldn't be popular in today's consumer mindset. Though this game does suffer from a few bugs that can harm it quite a bit.
The game has you chase after evil bosses that stole four princess's from the castle. Your quest involves you going through many areas such as the standard locations that would basically represent the 'fire area,' 'ice area,' 'forest area' and so on. Each area has new enemies in which you will need to kill and make it to the boss so save one princess after the other.
Castle Crashers is much like the game TMNT 1989 classic, in the way of it's beat 'em up style of gameplay. So if you liked that game, it's pretty safe to say now that you will enjoy this one. A beat 'em involves usually a high multiplayer value in which you move through levels just button mashing to kill enemies who are walking around and causing havoc. It also relies quite a bit on an RPG element since each enemy you kill awards your experience points or EXP points that helps you level up. You also get more points to use towards stat upgrades like magic and agility.
The biggest thing this style of game has going for it would be that it's a big social game, meaning it should have great multiplayer. Castle Crashers does that; but only for local co op. When the game was launched it's online became apparent that it's pretty crippled. Many people find that they can't get into games or even go online and find other people to play with. Trying to invite a friend in was impossible for me to be able to do and the one time I managed to find someone to play with, the game disconnected the instant we choose our characters. Though some people do seem to not have to much trouble, they only seem to be able to play for a few hours before something goes wrong. This fact really harms Castle Crashers because even with playing the single player alone, you can tell that it would be that much more fun for each friend you have with you.
With that being said, the game still stands quite strong on it's own as a single player game. Each new area involves something new that you need to take into account. Whether this be new styles in which the enemies fight, or new gameplay elements. In some areas you'll find yourself pitted against hooded thieves as they jabbed me with knives and shot me with arrows, while others will have you balancing on fish while you slash at a giant water cat thing. With other side missions to do like trying to find all the animal orbs or unlocking all the weapons in the game. The game even has arenas set throughout the game's map page so you can just get into a random brawl while trying to unlock new characters. Along with some humorous scenes and funny jokes this goes together quite nicely.
Though the game seems to try and go off three main modes, the adventure, an arena and a mini games where you mash the X and Y buttons called All You Can Quaff. Besides the adventure, these seems to try to make these a big deal, making the mini game even available in online and for leader boards. Though this game lasts maybe less than thirty seconds and that's about it, it doesn't interact in the main game at all and comes off as something the creators just stuffed in there for no reason. The arena option also seems like something just randomly thrown in, but has a little more significance. This would be for someone who just wants to play a quick game and kill a bunch of guys. Though it ends quite quickly and doesn't provide anything for a the win so it seems like turning your 360 on and loading up the game would take longer than this mode some times. There's also no way to change the arena mode you have since it's set to the first arena you unlock during the story. So your getting the same thing you have inside the main adventure mode. Some inter-connectivity would have been nice between the three modes with something even as small as getting some EXP points.
The graphics in the game are quite nice as everything seems quite smooth. It follows the same design as Alien Hominid did with it's flashtoon like look. Even at times it feels like this game would be fine as a flash game. The colors though are so vibrant and bold that they look nice on the usually dreary background. With all the different looking weapons, spells and items you can use, you can see a lot was put into this game. Let alone the many different landscapes you'll come across. The games tries to reach many different locations and succeed in replicating them beautifully.
As stated before, there are some bugs in it and one of the main ones I found where in the frame rate. While playing through a level that involved me riding a deer through an abandoned mill while other deer fled along side me. To my surprise I noticed one of the other deer wasn't actually moving in a set motion, more just stuck in one position but moving along side us as if it was flying. The next bug I saw was when fighting a boss, I hit him but for some reason he remained in the air being hurt by some unknown force. I knew this was probably just a random glitch since I played it again and this didn't happen. Among those were some freezing issues that occurred a few times and with all these together, it brings the game down a little. One of the biggest known bugs was that people's data was being erased for no apparent reason, I for one didn't run into this problem but it didn't seem to be only a few cases.
The last thing to note is basically, your gonna end up button mashing. Since it is a beat 'em up, you should already know that, button mashing is the main style for these kinds of games. Though instead of just having the usual one button to hit (like TMNT 1989 classic for example) you do also have the option of a stronger attack and even some magic attacks. Which gets into the territory of how God of War combat takes place. So it does break grounds a bit there with not just straight one button and figuring out to hit that thing like there's no tomorrow. You have some choice. New enemies will also make you have to think of new ways to attack, for instance you need to jump attack the guys who will shoot you with an arrow. You can even jump above enemies and kill many of them without even hitting the ground since you can do so many attacks as long as there's someone below you.
The general value you will get from this game is that it would have been worth the 1200 points you threw down. Being that this was one of the few XBLA games to be priced over the average 800, you would expect that you should be getting your monies worth for it. Castle Crashers would reach that expectation if it weren't for the broken online play it contains. While yes single player is fun and will have you enjoying it and laughing often, you always feel that this would be better if you had some buddies or random strangers to tackle those castles with. So overall I can recommend it, but at the same time I'm very close to not being able to what with all the bugs. I did enjoy the game and haven't run into memory loss problems, but I'm always disappointed that the online didn't hold up.
Overall: 8/10
The game has you chase after evil bosses that stole four princess's from the castle. Your quest involves you going through many areas such as the standard locations that would basically represent the 'fire area,' 'ice area,' 'forest area' and so on. Each area has new enemies in which you will need to kill and make it to the boss so save one princess after the other.
Castle Crashers is much like the game TMNT 1989 classic, in the way of it's beat 'em up style of gameplay. So if you liked that game, it's pretty safe to say now that you will enjoy this one. A beat 'em involves usually a high multiplayer value in which you move through levels just button mashing to kill enemies who are walking around and causing havoc. It also relies quite a bit on an RPG element since each enemy you kill awards your experience points or EXP points that helps you level up. You also get more points to use towards stat upgrades like magic and agility.
The biggest thing this style of game has going for it would be that it's a big social game, meaning it should have great multiplayer. Castle Crashers does that; but only for local co op. When the game was launched it's online became apparent that it's pretty crippled. Many people find that they can't get into games or even go online and find other people to play with. Trying to invite a friend in was impossible for me to be able to do and the one time I managed to find someone to play with, the game disconnected the instant we choose our characters. Though some people do seem to not have to much trouble, they only seem to be able to play for a few hours before something goes wrong. This fact really harms Castle Crashers because even with playing the single player alone, you can tell that it would be that much more fun for each friend you have with you.
With that being said, the game still stands quite strong on it's own as a single player game. Each new area involves something new that you need to take into account. Whether this be new styles in which the enemies fight, or new gameplay elements. In some areas you'll find yourself pitted against hooded thieves as they jabbed me with knives and shot me with arrows, while others will have you balancing on fish while you slash at a giant water cat thing. With other side missions to do like trying to find all the animal orbs or unlocking all the weapons in the game. The game even has arenas set throughout the game's map page so you can just get into a random brawl while trying to unlock new characters. Along with some humorous scenes and funny jokes this goes together quite nicely.
Though the game seems to try and go off three main modes, the adventure, an arena and a mini games where you mash the X and Y buttons called All You Can Quaff. Besides the adventure, these seems to try to make these a big deal, making the mini game even available in online and for leader boards. Though this game lasts maybe less than thirty seconds and that's about it, it doesn't interact in the main game at all and comes off as something the creators just stuffed in there for no reason. The arena option also seems like something just randomly thrown in, but has a little more significance. This would be for someone who just wants to play a quick game and kill a bunch of guys. Though it ends quite quickly and doesn't provide anything for a the win so it seems like turning your 360 on and loading up the game would take longer than this mode some times. There's also no way to change the arena mode you have since it's set to the first arena you unlock during the story. So your getting the same thing you have inside the main adventure mode. Some inter-connectivity would have been nice between the three modes with something even as small as getting some EXP points.
The graphics in the game are quite nice as everything seems quite smooth. It follows the same design as Alien Hominid did with it's flashtoon like look. Even at times it feels like this game would be fine as a flash game. The colors though are so vibrant and bold that they look nice on the usually dreary background. With all the different looking weapons, spells and items you can use, you can see a lot was put into this game. Let alone the many different landscapes you'll come across. The games tries to reach many different locations and succeed in replicating them beautifully.
As stated before, there are some bugs in it and one of the main ones I found where in the frame rate. While playing through a level that involved me riding a deer through an abandoned mill while other deer fled along side me. To my surprise I noticed one of the other deer wasn't actually moving in a set motion, more just stuck in one position but moving along side us as if it was flying. The next bug I saw was when fighting a boss, I hit him but for some reason he remained in the air being hurt by some unknown force. I knew this was probably just a random glitch since I played it again and this didn't happen. Among those were some freezing issues that occurred a few times and with all these together, it brings the game down a little. One of the biggest known bugs was that people's data was being erased for no apparent reason, I for one didn't run into this problem but it didn't seem to be only a few cases.
The last thing to note is basically, your gonna end up button mashing. Since it is a beat 'em up, you should already know that, button mashing is the main style for these kinds of games. Though instead of just having the usual one button to hit (like TMNT 1989 classic for example) you do also have the option of a stronger attack and even some magic attacks. Which gets into the territory of how God of War combat takes place. So it does break grounds a bit there with not just straight one button and figuring out to hit that thing like there's no tomorrow. You have some choice. New enemies will also make you have to think of new ways to attack, for instance you need to jump attack the guys who will shoot you with an arrow. You can even jump above enemies and kill many of them without even hitting the ground since you can do so many attacks as long as there's someone below you.
The general value you will get from this game is that it would have been worth the 1200 points you threw down. Being that this was one of the few XBLA games to be priced over the average 800, you would expect that you should be getting your monies worth for it. Castle Crashers would reach that expectation if it weren't for the broken online play it contains. While yes single player is fun and will have you enjoying it and laughing often, you always feel that this would be better if you had some buddies or random strangers to tackle those castles with. So overall I can recommend it, but at the same time I'm very close to not being able to what with all the bugs. I did enjoy the game and haven't run into memory loss problems, but I'm always disappointed that the online didn't hold up.
Overall: 8/10
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