If you haven't already bought Castle Crashers from the Xbox Live Marketplace, Im here to tell you to do so. The new patch has sorted all multiplayer problems so theres now no excuse.


You've probably never heard of The Behemoth. They developed the relatively unknown title Alien Hominid for the Gameboy, Gamecube, Playstation 2 and Xbox way back in 2004. Low and behold -- the release of the Xbox 360, equals the release of Alien Hominid HD. After flying under my radar for well over a year, I had no idea of the fun to be had with a side scrolling alien. Come 2008, The Behemoth announced the upcoming release of a new title, Castle Crashers. Now this seemed more like it. Old school. Side scrolling. Hack 'n' slash. Co-op. Perfect.



Set in what seems to be a time where Trebuchets commonly creek and old people playing flutes was a symphony to behold, you take over one of four noble Knights in a relatively simple quest: recover some huge glowing stone that was stolen from your King by a bat, and rescue four b-e-a-utiful ladies. Each Knight comes with a unique elemental power: fire, ice, lightning, or poison which when called upon, are delivered via your Knights heavenly hands in projectile form or over a targeted area. Pair this with an endless supply of melee weapons including fish, a vine and a log gives you a vast amount of weapon variety to chose from and crush your enemies with. The weapons themselves come with their own stats that directly affect yours. If you wish to equip a mallet -- expect a ton of strength but face a lack of speed. Equip a vine and move like a ninja, but expect no power benefit. You're also given the choice of a bow and arrow, bombs, a shovel and strangely a horn that makes even the biggest bastard slow down and think -- "What the?"

After choosing your required tools, you head into battle and hit something, and begin to gain experience points. These experience points can be used to increase attributes like strength, magic and agility which is a nice touch in a little game like this. If you do what I did and simply pile on all gathered experience points to strength, most foes will go down in one hit, but you'll take forever to reach them. Balance all you wish, but make sure strength and speed are always topped up. Another benefit from smacking people up is the reward of new combos -- which are essentially just button mashers but still fun to pull off. Progressing through the game, you'll also notice that tiny animals start following you round. These animals offer up different special abilities, like zapping enemies with electricity or giving you more money for killing. Take the appropriately named Rammy animal, for example. In the heat of battle, this little thing will endlessly headbutt anything that offers up any kind of conflict giving you free access to lay the smackdown on the bitch lying down on the floor. It's fun collecting all the animals and finding out their abilities and knowing how much they help you as you storm through the story. Unlockable characters are also on hand, villains such as Voodoo Pandas and opposing Knights become available after a few run throughs.



The gameplay itself is stunningly simple: jump, hit, move, use an elemental projectile, hit. Repeat. Although it may gather drearyness over time, destroying endless amounts of archers and knights with your new lollipop sword couldn't look more awesome. Destroying them with three of your friends however, that's something else. The standard ''oh my god, I killed more people than you" claim by everyone in the lobby can now no longer be fought over -- at the end of each level, a screen pops up telling you and your friends who the real daddy is, justified by Gold collected and kills gathered. Another way for superiority to be settled is after a level where you save one of the four hot mommas. Whoever survives the boss battles go head-to-head in a straight fight for the babe. It's a fun ending to a hard-won battle and adds that little bit extra into the game.



Other multiplayer modes include Arena, a constant horde of enemies piling towards you and the smartly named All You Can Quaff. After a hard days work crashing through the game in four or five hours, button mashing to eat food quicker than your friends provides a good giggle.

Summary:

Castle Crashers is brilliant. The humour is fantastic and the gameplay and scenery surprises are happily welcomed, provided by a slick, cool graphical presentation. The multiplayer is something that should definitely be experienced by everyone and everything. So, if you have no Xbox Live friends, get your cat to play with you.