Which means the Behemoth kids have finally got home and found that someone has taken a shit in their mailbox.
They consequently updated their site - "For those of you who are experiencing online issues, saving issues, etc I want to assure you that we are all very hard at work at getting an update to the game out as fast as we can. I am gathering all of the emails, forum posts, etc, etc for all of the issues that have been reported. As soon as I get them organized I will try to post them on here so everyone can see what we’re going to fix for the update. Again if you have any issues you want to discuss with us please email them to games[at]thebehemoth[dot]com and try to put a relevant subject line on there so I can sort through them easier."
Interpret that however you want.
Also apparently they have shifted just over 78,000 units in their first 3 days of sales, and currently there are 170,000 people sitting on their leaderboards. Thats quite Impressive for an XBLA game... thats also quite a lot of pissed off players who cannot play their new game online.
Anyways I will be checking their blog regularly so stay tuned...
UPDATE - 4th/september/08
Behemoth updated their blog again with regard to Castle Crashers Patch.
"YES!! Looks like we’re on our way to getting this title update out and the bigger issues like saving and online connectivity resolved, in addition to other bugs that have been reported." "We don’t have a specific time frame yet but we have been working on all known issues as soon as they appeared."
ALSO as a SOLUTION to those who have had their characters erased - this was discovered and posted on a gamepot FAQ page - "we discovered that if he started Castle Crashers from the dashboard his save wouldn't show up, but once in the game, if he signed out of his profile and signed back in, his character would re-appear. When I moved my memory card over to his Xbox I noticed that my save wasn't showing up either and the same trick of just signing out (while still in Castle Crashers) and signing back in made my character show back up."
Its hard to encapsulate the potentially infinate variable experiances in a block of type. You can be as expressive as you like, but you cannot account to how a random reader will react to the events when placed in the hot-seat themselves. There have been games reviewed which are, for want of a better word, broken. These are usually the result of underprepared or rushed developers, and fall apart when presented to the ruthlessly critical gaze of the consumer. I'm going to dump Castle Crashers in here, not because i'm looking for excuses to talk about it but because its a recent example that you will probably be able to relate to. When exposed to the over-hyped rush of the general public who smother servers with unpredictable tenacity, the game cannot hold its ground and the weaknesses of such a small design team are revealed. Its hard work, and I for one do not think any less of those working at the Behemoth, but their game is clearly suffering as a result. It probably worked fine when they were testing it with 20 guys in their office, but hundreds of thousands is harder to accommodate.
The alternative is a matter of taste. Reading through various Too Human reviews revealed there is a great lack of actual flaws to the core gameplay. The game does not crash, the graphics are by no means underwhelming, the pace is executively snappy and to the point. The experiance we are presented therefore is one of opinion. Some people like and enjoy trawling through space dungeons searching for gear. Some people take pride in devoting their time to generate the maximum badass character and then wreak havok with him online. A lot of people like this, which is why World Of Warcraft seems to work. What cost Too Human its perfect score was, at the end of the day - a lack of personal preferance.
Too Human There are a whole bunch of games that fit into this category of "good games that not everyone will like". Assassins Creed was one of my favorite games for a few months, until I realised that searching for flags wasnt really that enjoyable and thus defeated the point of my experiance. Some other players may have chosen to ignore that section of the game completely and their experiance may have (Will have) been boosted as a result. We like to think of there being an incentive to our games, and we as players like to be rewarded. If the reward is to small then we wont bother. Experiance points encapsulate this perfectly. But was it always this way? Did you need the lure of Achievement Points to enjoy Ghouls And Ghosts? No. That wasnt important. There was a certain amount of pride and competitiveness which seems to have been lost in modern games in the name of functionality. Everything needs to result in something important. It continually baffles me how people can enjoy a game like Animal Crossing or Harvest Moon and then whine about the lack of context in a game like Assassins Creed. Both games are hypothetically perfect, in that they are both working computer games. And at the end of the day, computer games are meaningless procrastinations. Its a harsh reality.
So if we remove the functionality of a review and its savagely oppressing guides which much be adhered to - then we are left with, effectively, the soul of a game. How does it feel. The end problem with this again, is taste. I like shooting Zombies. Others may not see the point. (They are fools). And there are a million other things that we now have to take into account, like is it appropriate for kids, whats the online community like, does it live up to PR boasts, does it meet the fanboy hype, how good is the developer support pre-release (I am considering getting Burnout Paradise as a result of being constantly impressed with the maintained quality of its dev support). We allow all these little things to factor and influence how we look at a game, and I feel that this can overshadow the game itself. We can choose to block all this out at the cost of becoming misinformed and losing our insight as to what titles are worth the expense.
I dont really know where i'm going with this, i'm basically typing and reflecting at the same time. I guess the point i'm making is game reviews are about trust. If I read a review by Jeff telling me a game was terrible but then my best friend told me he was having a blast playing that same game, I would probly go buy it. No dis-respect to Jeff, but at the end of the day that guy is a stranger to me. Through my (excessive) use of his websites I have vaugely come to learn that he can be trusted on certain topics, and that he is cynical enough to have a realistic view of most games he is playing. Therefore I have a certain amount of trust and respect for his opinion. But that doesnt mean Jeff is preaching the Gospel. (I'm going to stop talking about Jeff before he files a lawsuit)
So... yeah. Dead RisingSometimes it amazes me how willing we are to be convinced by the opinion of some random dude on the internet. Some egghead starts shouting mess on a blog or forum and suddenly everyone is nodding their heads like string puppets. A game review score is not the final word. People - exercise some assertiveness. Instead of jumping on a bandwagon go and play the game for yourself on the offchance that you have a really great time. Thing back over your favorite gaming experiances and they are unlikely to be the mainstream blockbusters. I would choose Dead Rising over Call Of Duty 4 any day...
Thats all I got for now. I'ts a bit messy but I hope you can walk away understanding something of the message i'm trying to get across, although I probably made it a lot more complicated than it really needs to be. I just enjoy writing stuff.
ROCKBAND has always sounded amazing. I am continually reminded on almost every podcast I listen to just how much fun Rockband is. Heres the beef; I dont think anyone in the whole of England owns a copy. I dont have it, none of my friends have it - I havent seen any on sale in game shops - which implies there is no demand for it. I certainly didnt hear about any "Sold-out" headlines.
One of the main factors for this is probably the price. The European pricing is ridiculously high. You have to buy all the instruments in one bundle, then go buy the game by itself. Thats insane in-itself. The price on amazon.co.uk is currently £99.99 ($200) for the instruments and £35 ($70) for the game itself. Add delivery, and we are looking at £150 ($300) for a computer game.
Secondly I think its just British people. We are miserable cynical bastards. We cant have too much fun or else our limbs start falling off.
I really want this game. I'm starting at my new university (my last one was a one year diploma - this next uni is the real deal) in 3 weeks and it would be awesome to have rock band as it looks like a great way to meet new people and just chill with some friends. It looks like exactly the sort of social experiance which universities try so hard (and usually fail) to achieve in the first few weeks - which is bringing everyone together and making them all feel comfortable. Rockband could be an easy solution. I have lots of other multiplayer games but i think rockband has the widest appeal...
I say "easy" solution, which is of course untrue. I'm broke. Ok not completely broke, but broke enough. I also dont want to make it sound like i'm socially retarded, because i'm not, i can meet people just fine without having to fall back on computer games. But it would be an easy way to break some tension, and also provides another incentive for me to go buy the damn thing...
So the question is, Is it worth it? What do you guys think?
He was back where he belongs. Somebody needs to nail-gun him into the Giant Bomb sofa so we are guaranteed a fix of Gallup every week. For some reason Gallup sounds like a condiment of some sort. I'm thinking Marmite but i'm sure any bovril flavoured substance would suit him just fine.
Heres some fun Gallup related trivia. Some of you may remember Rich's old blog www.doofycrap.com - well if you look back through the archives you will find that the first ever public doofy suggestion was made by... me. Sweep. Yours truely. I'm an internet phonomenon. If you are reading this then YOU OWE ME RICH - get into the bomb shelter right now!! (we dont call it the bomb shelter)
I just remembered i'm actually supposed to be talking about junk so heres some junk for me to talk about. I saw a bunch of movie trailers recently - the first being
MAX PAYNE
Which looks kind of weird. I never got past the fourth level of the game but I dont recall any angel-like monsters floating about. I think someone somewhere is getting a bit enthusiastically metaphysical.
and then
The Fast & Furious
Which got me super stoked because Vin Diesel is in it and that man is a complete tool and doesnt care who knows it. I love mindless films - they are much more entertaining to watch and talk about, and they provide valuable perspective as to what a decent film really is. Anyways the cars look like sex.
>>> I played some castle crashers online today, we managed to get a three player online game going and played for about 2 hours. It was great, although there are still some little hold-ups. I dont like the way you need to leave the room to change your character, and I got booted from the group at one point thanks to the randomness of CC's online modes. Fortunately being re-invited was fairly painless so overall it was a good experiance with little hassle. Hopefully the online mess is being sorted because that game really is a hella lotta fun. I'm going to write a guide soon (my first ever!) because i think i have found almost everything in that game... anyways, back on topic <<<
LASTLY AND MOST IMPORTANTLY i saw that preview of PURE done by Brad and he is 100% correct. That trailer is enough to convert anyone into an ATV enthusiast. I suggest you go and watch it on the Giantbomb blog if you havent already done so.
Thanks for reading Love (as always) Sweep
3 Comments
Although my offline experiance has been pretty flawless. I havent had any of the crashes that other people have been complaining about and I havent had any of my characters deleted. The online bugs havent bothered me because I have been playing multiplayer locally.
Am I the only person who doesnt have a broken copy of castle crashers?
According to the other responses, no I am not. But yeah, the online stuff is fucked for everyone...
7 Comments
Sorry for the third blog post today but I figured this was important. This was posted on http://devblog.thebehemoth.com/ I initially thought this was a patch for the game but it might just be for their website. Apparently its "getting slammed", I assume with people complaining about the faulty online components. Stay tuned...
I got a little fucked off earlier and made some comments that were a little unreasonable - and if I pissed anyone off then i'm sorry and I realise I was acting like a bit of a tool.
But there are two things that remain unchanged by this revelation.
The first
Is that Castle Crashers is a good game. Some people are having problems with it and I sympathise.
The Second
Pointing out people can't spell as a way of retaliation is not cool. It doesnt make an argument any less valid and its a cheap substitute for intelligent discussion. I realise in the context this is a little hypocritical but fuck it...
But again, apologies go out to everyone - specifically Oni and DBoy
2 Comments
I spent a long time waiting for Castle Crashers. I loved Alien Hominid, and have mountains of respect for those guys over at the Behemoth. SO when I finally got my mitts on Castle Crashers last night I was pretty excited. 10 hours later.... I'm still pretty excited to be honest.
First thing I did after buying the game was shout my brother over - and we immediately hopped into the Adventure Mode. I picked the Red Knight, whilst my brother opted for the Orange Knight, providing us with a range of Electric and Fire attacks (Blue and Green possess Ice and Poison abilities). The story is presented - rescue the princesses from the evil castles. And so, the Castle Crashing began...
Choose your hero!!
RPG
Although Castle Crashers has RPG elements to it's combat, never once did this feel restrictive. The difficulty of the game works at a gentle curve, so that we were never forced to retreat and grind up a few levels before we could advance through the story - an element of the gameplay design which I massively appreciated. This means you can watch your little dude grow more powerful and learn new attacks, without disrupting the flow of the game. The RPG elements are very simple - every time you smash an Evil dude you get some XP. Get enough, and you go up a level. With each new level you get awarded 2 attribute points, which can be divided amongst 4 abilities.
Strength
Magic
Defence
Agility / ranged
For the most part assigning points to each of these attributes will make little difference to your fighting style, although after every 4 points assigned to magic you will learn a new/more powerful attack. For example my Red Knight could initially shoot lightning in bursts, but the more points I assigned to magic, the longer the bursts could be held and the more awesome they looked. Each attribute maxes out after 25 points so its fairly easy to get a decent specced character. Mana regenerates quickly so it is possible to play through using magic as your main form of attack. My red Knight was sent down the Magic / Defence route, whilst my brother chose Strength and Agility (which meant he could fire more powerful arrows and smash dudes with a club).Each of the abilities is implemented simply yet efficiently to allow you a small selection of both near and ranged attacks whatever path you choose to follow. Ammo is also unlimited, so you dont need to worry about rushing round picking up spent arrowheads. The whole game has designed to be streamlined so you can progress at a steady pace.
The Combat
Very basic, as you would expect from a side-scroller. X is for quick attacks, Y for smashes. Combine them together in different orders to create combos. The longer your combo runs the more XP you will recieve. There is the usual bunch of animals and stuff to ride around on, with a refreshing mix of Behemoth humour. Watching an own shit itself and then fall out of a tree never gets old. The movement of your characters is very fluent so you can bounce around with ease without getting stuck behind objects - and the collision detection is also very forgiving meaning you dont have to be exactly parallel with your enemy to score a hit.
Enemies can use all the same attacks as you, including magic and ranged attacks, as well as special moves like digging underground. There are dozens of different character models, and they all look fantastic so dont worry about getting bored fighting the same 4 dudes "only in different colours" for the entire game. When enemies are killed they will either drop gold or fruit.
If a player is killed then other players can go and revive them by pressing tapping Y in time to their heartbeat. Rappidly tapping Y will quickly ressurect the player, but if you are careful and time it right to the heartbeats you will ressurect your mate with more health. Health can otherwise be gained by picking up fruit or drinking potions (can be bought from shops).
Hack N Slash
Whilst playing I got a real sense of respect for Computer Games from the designers. It's clear they have obviously played around their own genre, and have looked at other similar titles and decided what they loved - and then stuck those ideas down in Castle Crashers. The resulting experiance lands at the top of the stack.
Right what else do I need to talk about? Oh yeah!
Animal Orbs and Weapons.
Weapons are fairly basic - they look way more awesome as you go up levels, and they will add and subtract points from your attributes - but they will not grant you new attacks. You use an axe the same as you use a pointy stick: you smack fools on the head with it until they stop moving. Animal Orbs are interesting mechanics that basically involve a little critter floating along behind you and helping you in one way or another. Some will give you a defence boost, others will attack or trip up enemies - my favorite is a little Giraffe who makes you level up faster... They dont need looking after or anything stupid like that they just look kind of cute. The enemy guys can use them as well so watch out....
Aethetics
I would at this point like to point out that the aesthetics of the game are phonemenal. The lines are all clear and crisp, the colours vibrant, and the "mature-cartoon" theme is continued brilliantly throughout the entire experiance; Menus, loading screens and all. I love the simple humour (very apparent in the boss characters) and it makes Castle Crashers such a charming experiance.
The most important thing I feel is just the general atmosphere of the game. The sound is of a high quality and really adds to the sense of fun in the game. The screen is, most of the time, chaotic (the framerate thankfully perfect). There will be guys flying around everywhere, a war raging in the background, 3 or 4 guards or villagers helping you out, as well as 15 enemies running around shooting arrows and all casting spells and its just jaw-droppingly stunning. Castle Crashers excells at filling the screen with dudes for you to slash your way through, and it looks beautiful in the process. It was crazy with 2, I cannot wait to get over some more friends so we can slam through the game with 4 people...
4 player online co-op
Content
The storyline is predictably shallow, as to be expected from an arcade game. I played through and it took me about 5 hours from start to finish. That got me to level 25, but my stats were far from maxed out. One playthrough also got me about 5 achievements, but the others look like they could take a while longer for anyone who is interested.
Minigames
There are two minigames - "All You can Quaff", and "Arena". Both can be played with 4 people online (hypothetically) and both have their own sets of leaderboards. All You can Quaff involves tapping X and Y alternately to eat your food as fast as possible. Arena is a caged fight between players, or if solo - a fight against waves of the local enemies depending on which arena you are visiting.
Anything else? Ahh yes. Multiplayer.
Multiplayer
The lobby system is broken. Thats the beef, straight up. If i'm going to mention anything negative here today, its the lobby system. After completing the game on local co-op me and my brother tried to hop into a multiplayer adventure over the internet. Each time I clicked search I was presented a message that said "Game is currently full" or some other nonsense - I wasnt even at the lobby yet! I was at this point still quite enthuiastic so I spent a good 20 minutes retrying and getting stupid messages telling me all the games were full. This was extra frustrating as we were sent back out to the main menu after every failed attempt. A pain in the ass, to put it lightly. When I finally got into the lobby I selected a game and was promptly given the same error message as before and booted out to the main menu again.
*sigh*
Having persevered with the multiplayer I eventually got into a game with one other dude and the three of us (my brother was still hanging around) fought through a bunch of levels. It was pretty fun, but the other guy didnt have a mic which was a little frustrating. As he was the host we were restricted to only the levels he had unlocked, but I wasnt too bothered because they are all a lot of fun. I played online for about an hour and didnt notice any lag or drop in quality so thats a positive. But it really wasnt worth hanging around for half an hour to play. My guess is the servers are clogged up with eager gamers who have just got their hands on the game. Castle Crashers was highly anticipated and i'm sure lots of people jumped straight in, clogged up the servers, and were immediately dissapointed. But a similar thing happened with Super Smash Bro's and that got sorted out eventually so we will just have to wait and see... The Behemoth lads are fairly unexperianced with Online Multiplayer so I imagine their learning curve is rather steep...
Issues
The first time we played through the game my brother was using a guest account. Unfortunately this meant that his progress was not saved, and all his player stats were erased, including the character he had been leveling. He also couldnt use any of my characters that had been advanced which meant he had to start again from scratch. The only way around this was for him to sign into another account, and then his characters were saved - but he cannot take them online because that other account does not have XBLGold enabled. Its not a big problem its just a little frustrating for him because every time we go online he has to begin at level 1 again.
Final Say
Castle Crashers is a lot of fun. But you have to take it at surface value. If you come expecting a great deal of depth to any one aspect to the game you are going to be dissapointed. If you just want to go and brawl it out with your friends in a genuinely exciting and amusing adventure, then this is the game for the job. Its a lot of fun, it keeps you busy at all times, and it seldom gets boring or repetitive. The layout is clean and easy to use - and for the most part the game is simple enough to master without any real tuition, so pretty much anyone can pick-up and play. It deserves this MAMMOTH review. I loved it, and if you give it a chance i'm certain you will see why...
Is arriving as we speak - currently downloading. Im SO STOKED.
I think i should take this oppurtunity to explain why I am only just downloading it now, as oppose to midnight last night. Thats because I have been out getting smashed for the last two days. I hit up Notting Hill Carnival in London which was fuckin insane - and then shot down to worthing to catch up with a load of mates from school. I got rediculously buzzed out and drank several bottles of wine and then collapsed. Before I passed out I had a chance to play some COD4 on PC (you can have 50 people online in a server?!? THATS SO AWESOME!!). I also found out via facebook that my friend who is currently in Germany went to Lipzig and didnt even tell me about it.
Her:Oh yeah btw I was at this computer game thing in Germany, apparently its one of the biggest in Europe? Me: ZOMG you went to GDC? Her: I dont know what it's called, maybe that was it yeah. Anyways it was amazing, I was playing Littlebigplanet and got loads of freebies and stuff. I got backstage as well because my dad was helping to organise the event. Me: ..............I hope you get aids........
So yeah, NEXT YEAR i'm going to be there. Sick one.
Also I spent all my money on Wine last night (£40?) so now i have maxed out my overdraft. I doubt i'm going to be buying any more games for a while.... at least until the student loan kicks in =D
*EDIT* I'm playing it. Its awesome. 5 stars.
8 Comments
Log in to comment