61 Frames Per Second : castle crashers

Trailer Review: Behemoth’s Game #3. They Made Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers, Guys. They Rule.

John Constantine — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 23:30:00 GMT

Everything Dan Paladin draws makes me laugh. I just can’t help it. The first time I saw that squiggly-mouthed, bug-eyed little bastard from Alien Hominid, I haven’t been able to look at a single frame from either of Behemoth’s games without cracking up. Seriously, I almost suffocated when I saw the cyclops boss from Castle Crashers give a Terminator 2 thumbs-up as he drowned in lava. My sense of humor isn’t refined, what can I say.

Needless to say, I damn near choked watching this trailer for their new game.

From the looks of it, Game #3 is going to be some kind of… something. It looks like blisteringly fast multiplayer platforming that’s both co-operative (two player jumps) and competitive (player type changing color of platforms.) Not quite as much variety and batshit insanity as Castle Crashers in the art department, but I think simplicity is a nice change of pace after Hominid and Crashers.

Man. That little dude holding up the gem to the other dude. That is… genius. I can’t even properly tell you why that’s funny.

Previous Trailer Reviews:

Muramasa – The Demon Blade
InFamous
Watchmen: The End is Nigh
Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure
Dante’s Inferno is Looking Even More… Something
Machinarium
Mightier
Demon’s Souls
Final Fantasy XIII Looks Disturbingly Interesting
Priston Tale II: The 2nd Enigma
King of the Fighters XII
Edge
Dante's Inferno
Star Wars: The Old Republic
Resident Evil 5

Double Dragon in the Flesh. The NAKED Flesh.

John Constantine — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:00:00 GMT

I don’t get to write about one of my greatest and longest lasting gaming loves here on 61 Frames Per Second. It’s understandable, after all. They simply don’t make beat ‘em ups very often anymore. In the realm of three-dimensional interactive entertainments, you rarely find a game that is purely about punching people and/or monsters in the groin and dropkicking them in the face. Yes, there’s God Hand, but more often than not, you have to get your thrills from weapons-based affairs like Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden. Even more rare is the 2D brawler. Castle Crashers was a succulent feast for my starving soul last year. Most of the time, when I need to get a fix of beating the ever-loving hell out of semi-defenseless sprites, I need to go back to the well of yesteryear. I need to fire up the Saturn for a little Dungeons and Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara. When I’m feeling especially punchy, I’ll even indulge in a smattering of Maximum Carnage on Super Nintendo. And, of course, there’s always a time for Double Dragon. Sometimes, the only thing that will make you feel whole is making a guy wearing a spandex onesie knee a seven foot tall bald man in the chest.

Lucky for me that the modding community keeps reimagining classic experiences like these. It keeps things fresh. Gaming, like marriage, occasionally needs a little spice after twenty years. This, however, is not necessarily what I had in mind.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the idea of an all nude, all the time Double Dragon. In fact, I’d pay good money for such a thing. But why is it that it’s only naked chicks in this hack? I mean, this is just creepy! Why not go whole hog? Give the world what it wants: naked Abobo.

I guess I’ll just have to go back to playing Ikkitousen: Eloquent Fist…

Related links:

Double Dragon Double Dragon Double Dragon!!
A Perfectly Cromulent Beat-Em-Up
One Crazy Summer of Arcade
Japan Scares Me: Tokyo Game Show Rising, Strangeness, and Panty-shot Beat ‘Em Ups

For Indie Games, These are the Salad Days

Joe Keiser — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Good news, everyone! MSNBC.com is reporting that somehow, the beautiful, excellent labor of love World of Goo actually made a good amount of money for its innovative creators.

This is probably the most heartening story of the long list of heartening stories that have come out about indie games this year. World of Goo managed to make money with a slim marketing budget of approximately $0.00. Other things, like Braid and Castle Crashers, had a minimal marketing push—yet the most accurate predictors we have for this kind of thing (VGChartz might usually be wildly inaccurate, but their XBLA chart is based on information pulled from a massive collection of real GamerTags and is generally considered to be as close as we can get to true XBLA sales numbers) believe these games generated millions of dollars in revenue, each.

We are talking games that were made by no more than two men, games that were built on laptops in coffee shops. Could it be possible this era of HD gloss and budgets approaching nine figures could also be indie gaming’s greatest days?

It’s entirely possible. Back at the beginning of the medium most games were made by single renaissance programmers, but the money we’re looking at now is much better than what Richard Garriott and Roberta Williams made selling plastic baggies to their local software retailers.

And while it may be digital distribution that’s responsible for the most profitable parts of this trend, it’s not the sole factor. Remember that whole Limbo of the Lost plagiarism debacle? That story was so hilarious it actually got fully researched, revealing that the game’s “creator” Majestic Studios were really just three guys who concocted the whole thing in a bar. Had they not stolen every single bit of background artwork for their game, that three-man work (give or take a few, maybe fictional outsourcers) would have gotten an international release to actual, physical stores.

That a sprawling indie scene is creating its own commercial hits says that this is the healthiest the medium has ever been, with a large enough player base to support nearly any kind of well-executed crazy idea. Forget the success of the AAA titles and the Wii—if you want to see if an industry is truly mainstream, you have to look to the strength of the works at the fringes. They’re doing great, and, so long as we keep getting things like Mac Ports of Aquaria and WiiWare versions of Cave Story, we are too.

Watcha Playing: The Palette Cleanser

John Constantine — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:45:00 GMT

The past six weeks have been teeming with meaty, action games. I’ve been working through them slowly but surely, like an elegant seven course meal. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed was thick, hot comfort fare, a brief appetizer of sloppy design coated in delicious Stormtrooper and rancor killing action. The game’s a buggy mess, really, the gaming equivalent of empty calories, but definitely satisfying. Then there was the dynamic horror duo of Dead Space and Silent Hill: Homecoming, a soup and salad combo built to terrify. They didn’t really scare, but instead delivered visceral body simulations. Both games succeeded by making you constantly aware of your avatar’s physical presence and the heft of their actions, and they achieved this through a careful synergy between atmosphere and play. Yakuza 2 was truly the main course, a game I had no expectations for whatsoever that turned into an all time favorite. Its broad adventure, pulp tale of cops and crooks, and simple but ceaselessly engaging fisticuffs were nourishing, more substantial than anything released on current gen consoles. For dessert, Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. Another bonafide surprise, Ecclesia turned out to not be another retread through Igarashi’s decade-old formula, but a challenging successor to Castlevania 2 with fierce action whose variety and elegance was exceeded only by the game’s environments. Yes, it’s been a great month of big games, but it’s been the small things I’ve played in between them, games I’ve played for no more than a handful of minutes here and there, that have given the most *ahem* food for thought.

The palette cleansers, as it were, aren’t what you might expect either. These quick play sessions, no more than fifteen or twenty minutes, haven’t been with simplistic small titles. Far from it actually. The ones I keep returning to are Wipeout HD, Mega Man 9, the original Katamari Damacy, and Castle Crashers, all games that sport demanding mechanics, all games that get very stressful very quickly. Hairpin turns at high speed in Wipeout and precision jumps toward clandestine robot master confrontations don’t exactly seem like the ingredients for refreshment, but they’ve been restorative between the larger games. What makes these games perfect palette cleansers isn’t their immediacy, nor is it their lack of an expansive narrative. The key characteristic is that they don’t demand a serious investment in their world before and after. You don’t have to remember what you were on your way to do before your last save, what sidequests you’ve half completed. You simply need to know how to control them, and all of them take practice to control well.

Strange as it is to say, after recently starting a game of Fable 2, I immediately thought that it would make for an excellent palette cleanser. The game may be huge in scope and have a sweeping story to tell, but its play and guiding hand towards objectives don’t ask much of you beyond an understanding of the world’s rules. Molyneux’s made a sprawling RPG that’s less of a filet mignon and more of a small dish of sherbert. I’m wondering what other fall blockbusters may hide the same quality.

What are some of your favorite palette cleansers, everyone?

Related links:

The 61FPS Review: Dead Space
Katamari in the Classroom, Part 1
Style Over Substance: Why I'm In Love With WiiWare's "Art Style"
Screen Test: Star Wars – The Force Unleashed
Whatcha Playing: Weight of the Stone
Surprise of the Week: Sega Releases a Good Game
Impressions: Fable 2
Gears of LittleBig Fable Music: Considering the First-Party Blitz
New Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia Pics
Suffering Castlevania Fatigue

Continuing the Old-School Conversation

Bob Mackey — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 23:00:00 GMT

Boy, we here at 61FPS sure are thinking with a hive mind today--and it's all due to a lovable, fast-talking British fellow who's already popped up a few times on our blog in the past 24 hours. Needless to say, the reactions of our own bloggers have been intriguing, so I thought I'd continue the old-school conversation with my own post.

First of all, retro is undoubtedly back in style--if that isn't contradictory enough for you. I was going to begin this post by going through a list of the most recent retro remakes/revivals, but there's just too damn many. Right now, I'm completely stuck in the past with Mega Man 9 and the DS remake of Dragon Quest IV, and I couldn't be happier. As much as I try to resist the crippling powers of nostalgia, it does get to me; and, in some ways, I realize the tragedy of buying my childhood back, one game at a time.

It's safe to say that I'm on the same page as John and Nadia when it comes to Bionic Commando: Rearmed--but there are certain retro quirks that irk me when they appear in a modern-day game. Take the concept of "lives," for instance; it's something that I've wanted to write an in-depth article about for a long time (and I just may do that!). I'm completely against punishing a player with tedium (i.e., replaying long stretches of a game) for screwing up; but if Mega Man 9 didn't have a lives system, it would feel very, very wrong. Despite it kicking my ass up and down the block for a week, there are certain old-school ideas that work best in certain contexts.

On the other hand, a game like the Wii's Zack and Wiki absolutely did not need a lives system--especially when the developers seemed so keen on murdering you for experimentation and exploring; not a good idea when finicky Wiimote controls can screw you at every turn. And look at Super Mario Galaxy--what exactly were the point of lives in that game? I've never had a game over in Galaxy, but I'm sure losing all of my lives would provide me with nothing but a brief period of inconvenience as I loaded up my old save. Is that supposed to encourage me to play better?

I guess what I'm saying is we should keep the old mechanics where they belong, and revamp the ones that would be inexcusable today. Bionic Commando: Rearmed did a great job at this; what do you guys think?

Related Links

Bionic Commando is Love: Bionic Commando Rearmed is Out. It Matters.
One Crazy Summer of Arcade
Yahtzee Rolls With the Big Dogs, Takes the Piss Out of GTA4