E3 2008: Castle Crashers Hands-On
We hacked and slashed our way through a level of this cool-looking Xbox Live Arcade game.
Castle Crashers is a straightforward hack-and-slash in the same mold as Golden Axe that will pit you and up to three other knights against a host of enemies this summer on Xbox Live Arcade. From the makers of the quirky Alien Hominid, Castle Crashers will share the same bold, cute graphical style and add simple but addictive gameplay.
The controls are extremely simple: You slash, you slash hard, you shoot an arrow, you run around, no problem. But though the controls are normal, the animations they lead to are anything but; you might just slash a bad guy a few times and watch him drop to his knees, or you might pop his head off like a wet daisy. Some of this depends on what combination of heavy and light attacks you press, but some actions also seem to depend on chance, making for battles that are full of gory surprises.
When we played, we hacked our way through lots of knights and archers before finally running into a giant battering ram that had bad guys inside. We leaped into the air and hacked at its planks while avoiding its lethal charges and falling balls of fire. We finally defeated the contraption and moved on, presumably capturing a castle. Later on, we saw four people playing cooperatively, and when they beat that same boss, a princess came out, thanking them for her rescue. The knights did the only thing that knights in that position could do: They fought each other to the death to claim the princess. We've never needed much of a reason to hack up our friends in online battlefields, but we can't wait to see what other lures Castle Crashers will dangle before us when it hits Xbox Live Arcade later this summer.
61 comments
pretty fun game so far in the demo i have played......graphics aren't everything as this game proves gameplay is half the fun!!!!
haha fighting over the princess reminds me of how in the first double dragon how at the very end where you and your friend fought over marian (or maybe it was because jimmy was the boss of the shadow warriors... but whatever) but yeah, maybe i'll get this. im worried my friends wont have as much fun playing it as i probably will, looks fun though
of course I gotta download this one, I downloaded ninja turtles, double dragon, and streets of rage 2, its just somethin undeniably entertaining about arcade style beat-em ups. . .on a side note, when is Dishwasher: Dead Samurai comin out, seems like it was shown last year, or maybe really early this year, WHAT'S THE HOLD UP!!!!!
I played Castle Crashers last year at PAX and I was deeply impressed just from the demo. I can't wait for this title and I assure everyone that it is well worth it.
crunchie ninja, i dont blame you, it looks pretty awesome. i mean, alien hominad was pretty sexy
This will be a definite purchase for me, I just wish it would be here already! This looks like tons of fun.
Yeah have i not been highly anticipating this game for over a year now? I reall wonder what took so long to have it finished, as it looked exactly the same last year. I guess the dev team is really small...like under 5 persons? Anyway, i'm happy it's finally arriving this summer. This game will rock!
this could be the best XBLA coming to date,the graphics are awesome (i love the art style) ,the game is golden axe theme which is good ,the mechanics are awesome , and the game is quite deep with upgraded fighting combos and stuff , cant get any better ,but it could , 4 co-op online is more than enough (hope there will be no lags) , and with awesome weapons , i want!!! this!!!! now!!!!!! i just hope it will cost 800 and not 1600 but mah i dont care that much ill buy this.
Nice, this looks like a good attidion to my downloads, finally something worth paying for on XBLA.
I've been excited ever since this game was first announced. Kinda pissed that it's release date is still TBA. Hopefully it will come out very soon after they announce the ship date.
another nice looking original ip for xbla awesome. hopefully they also get the sony exclusive flower game. I hate buying using psn Oh well, it's published by Sony, so it will stay with Sony. =) Anyway, I've been waiting for this game for well over a year, about damn time it comes out.
another nice looking original ip for xbla awesome. hopefully they also get the sony exclusive flower game. I hate buying using psn
I been waiting for this for AGES. This could really be the next 2d fighter that pleases me like streets of rage 2 did back in the day :) Looking forward to it, even if its going to be 1000 points, itl be well worth it imo. I hope its got a long campaign and has nice upgrades etc over time. Another one im looking out for is an XBLA game called "The Dishwasher : Dead Samurai". Youtube it! :)
still waiting for this come out behememoth, come on man, just release, this game has the longest dev cycle of any xbla game i can think of... will pick it up for sure, looks like a fun game, but the wait is killing me
This game has been delayed alot. From what I can remember about it was supposed to be released a year ago.
After playing "Castle Crashing the Beard" on Newgrounds, I thought this would be a platformer, but it seems I was wrong. Anyway, be sure to give this playable teaser a try! http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/429765
I wish this (and Alien Hominid HD) was coming out for the PSN as well. Behemoth knows how to do it up right.
The arcade is getting good. I've been waiting for this game for way too long. Years. Jeeeez.
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Review Scores
| Platform | GameSpot | Metacritic / User Score |
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Game Info
- Release Date: Aug 27, 2008 (AU)
- Classification Board: PG
- Release Date: Sep 26, 2012 (US)
- Release Date: Nov 3, 2010 (AU)
- Classification Board: PG
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