I know that's an incredibly dumb term.
Anyway, something you should know is that Castle Crashers is getting patched in about three hours. Yes. I said it. Patched. That means we can finally play it online! Yes! I'm so happy! So far this Christmas has started off great. If anyone wants to play some of the old game tomorrow, hook me up.
Also, to add to the holiday time, Doctor Octoroc has made an 8-Bit Techno album based on Christmas tunes. You can find it here. He titles it: 8-Bit Jesus. Some tracks I find noteworthy are The Legend of Noel and Have Yourself a Final Little Fantasy. The best part about all these songs is that they use the music you find in the game to compose the Christmas jingle. So you will hear only notes used in The Legend of Zelda when hearing The Legend of Noel.
Now for something not holiday themed, however it fits in with 8-Bit Techno. I've known about 8-Bit Peoples for a while now and I don't really know why I didn't show you guys more of it. This site has some of my favorite 8-Bit Techno I've ever heard as it is so deep and well put together. I would post some of my favorite albums and songs, but I can't quite remember and all my music has been erased when my computer crashed.
Have a great holiday everyone.
Showing posts with label Castle Crashers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Castle Crashers. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
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
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
Sunday, August 31, 2008
17 years of football left
So I ended up buying Castle Crashers. I bit the bullet and now my pile of MS points are quite slim. There's been some talk around the e-webs about how it broken, as I have stated before as well. Due to this, I have no idea what I'm going to do about reviewing it. I really hope they release a patch soon for it cause then I'll be all over that thing. Anyways some people have found a fix for it, you can find it here apparently it works fine, I hope I don't have to do it, if I do, I'll let you know.
Gotta get back to simulating another 17 years of football.
Gotta get back to simulating another 17 years of football.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Castle Crashers and the price of XBLA games?
It was just recently announced that the highly anticipated game Castle Crashers developed by The Behemoth is now going to be changing it's price to 1200 points. Before this, it had been announced that the game would be going for 1800 reaching a price of around $22.50 American for the game; making it the most expensive XBLA game yet to be released.
I think I speak for all of us when I say, thank god. I had been thinking about this game and it's former steep price ever since it had been announced. I had always been interested in the game but the first price thrown out there kinda shook me up. I was getting to the point where I thought that I might just bite the bullet and pay the $20+ (and being in Canada, it's a bit more than $22.50). So this new announcement greatly puts me at ease.
It got me thinking though, are games going to soon be getting their prices hiked on the 360's marketplace? I read an article today on Giant Bomb by Jeff which first gave me the news about this price drop. He went into how he might think games are now going to be hitting 1200 as the standard price now, instead of 800.
It made me wonder and somewhat agree. I could see Microsoft charging 1200 ($15 US) for these games, they know people will pay for them.
When the marketplace was first out, they were only charging 400 points for games, even ones as huge as Geometry Wars Retro Evolved, and from that the standard price is now 800. So from the beginning where Microsoft was first seeing how much people would be willing to pay for these games, to now seeing how much farther we will be willing to go. I thought 800 was a fair price, $10 (US) for a short game on the 360. I could handle that. But now with the 1200 points becoming a little popular with games like Braid and Penny Arcade even passing that, will 1200 be the new 'fair' price? $15 is getting awfully close to the price of the budget games when they hit the "Player's Choice" or whatever. I'm beginning to think a game with the story or main single player mode only reaching 10 hours at most till your going back on pure replay value is a bit much.
I'm happy to pay the $15 for Castle Crashers, but is it just because my other alternative was $22.50?
What do you guys think; will $15 become the next standard price for the XBLA games?
P.S. It's out on the 27th and I'd love to stay up for it, but I'm coming back from my vacation that day so I'll be missing the launch by a few hours. Anyone staying up?
I think I speak for all of us when I say, thank god. I had been thinking about this game and it's former steep price ever since it had been announced. I had always been interested in the game but the first price thrown out there kinda shook me up. I was getting to the point where I thought that I might just bite the bullet and pay the $20+ (and being in Canada, it's a bit more than $22.50). So this new announcement greatly puts me at ease.
It got me thinking though, are games going to soon be getting their prices hiked on the 360's marketplace? I read an article today on Giant Bomb by Jeff which first gave me the news about this price drop. He went into how he might think games are now going to be hitting 1200 as the standard price now, instead of 800.
It made me wonder and somewhat agree. I could see Microsoft charging 1200 ($15 US) for these games, they know people will pay for them.
When the marketplace was first out, they were only charging 400 points for games, even ones as huge as Geometry Wars Retro Evolved, and from that the standard price is now 800. So from the beginning where Microsoft was first seeing how much people would be willing to pay for these games, to now seeing how much farther we will be willing to go. I thought 800 was a fair price, $10 (US) for a short game on the 360. I could handle that. But now with the 1200 points becoming a little popular with games like Braid and Penny Arcade even passing that, will 1200 be the new 'fair' price? $15 is getting awfully close to the price of the budget games when they hit the "Player's Choice" or whatever. I'm beginning to think a game with the story or main single player mode only reaching 10 hours at most till your going back on pure replay value is a bit much.
I'm happy to pay the $15 for Castle Crashers, but is it just because my other alternative was $22.50?
What do you guys think; will $15 become the next standard price for the XBLA games?
P.S. It's out on the 27th and I'd love to stay up for it, but I'm coming back from my vacation that day so I'll be missing the launch by a few hours. Anyone staying up?
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