As a general rule of thumb, there is one thing that can make an awesome game even awesomer. That one thing, as we're sure you've already guessed, is a chainsaw. Smart company that it is, The Behemoth has announced that not only will upcoming Castle Crashers DLC add two new characters -- the King and the Necromancer -- but also a chainsaw. Why is there a chainsaw in what is obviously a medieval world? Shut up is why.
Those of you experiencing connection problems -- like us -- fear not, for The Behemoth has promised that fixing the technical issues in Castle Crashers is "top priority." Considering that the patch has no given release date, that makes the release of the DLC even more nebulous. Other details, like the price, are also up in the air. Here's hoping we get our patch and our DLC sooner rather than later.
Castle Crashers is finally here folks. We spent the better part of our morning putting the game through its paces, and now a new episode of XBLA in Brief to show for it. An old school hack n' slash game with a quirky sense of humor, Castle Crashers definitely deserves notice from long time gamers. Check out our latest episode and find out if it's worth 1200 Microsoft Points.
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With all the hubbub surrounding Castle Crashers this week, we were eager to download our own copy this morning. After trying out the single player campaign it was time to try out some online multiplayer. And that's when the problems started. Try as we might, we simply can't get into an online game. So far, we've managed to get into one game, but that abruptly ended after about a minute with the message that the game was no longer available. We've been reading various comments about it on the web and we've decided to put together a poll to see how everyone's experience has been so far. Give your feedback below.
After yesterday's discovery and following denial of an 1800 MS Points price for Castle Crashers, The Behemoth's Emil Ayoubkhan has made an official comment on the Castle Crashers development blog. According to Ayoubkhan, not only is the 1800 point price incorrect, but the price itself hasn't even been decided. "Both The Behemoth and Microsoft are still working together to figure out a reasonable price point. (not 1800 points)," says Ayoubkhan. He adds that the final price of Castle Crashers will be set by Microsoft (in other words, if the price is high, it's Microsoft's fault). Whatever the price is, we should know for sure by August 25.
It might be a little too early to breathe a sigh of relief, but things could be looking up for Castle Crashers and Braid. Both were recently listed on the official Japanese Xbox 360 blog for the relatively high prices of 1800 ($22.50) and 1200 ($15.00) points respectively. According to Shacknews, Microsoft has denied these prices, noting that they are "incorrect for both domestic and international markets." Microsoft adds that the official prices will be revealed on the Mondays before Braid and Castle Crashers release dates, which are August 4 and 25 respectively.
You can all put your torches and pitchforks away ... for now.
Those Behemoth jerks just keep teasing us with more content for Castle Crashers. Earlier this week, we were treated to a new ninja character and now we discover that there is also a skeleton. We don't know much about him (or her) apart from the fact that he wields a bone firing bow as his long range weapon. Since we know so little, we'll have to make something up. His name -- we have decided -- is Skelly. Now, someone please tell us when we can buy this game.
Face it, everything is better with ninjas. It's like in that movie The Last Samurai when all the ninjas attacked. It was like, "Whoa, ninjas! This movie just got even awesomer!" Imagine that feeling, only applied to Castle Crashers. See, it feels awesome, righ?. The game was already cool and now it has a ninja and is even cooler (and by cool we mean totally sweet). If you thought it couldn't get any better than that, then get this: the ninja carries ... a mug. Not just any mug ... a Ninja Mug. We're not quite sure how it works, but according to the Castle Crashers website, its purpose is "defensive shielding."
It's official now: the wait for Castle Crashers is killing us. Follow the source link for shots of ninja doing his thing.
Castle Crashers was by far the most fun we had at WonderCon. Everything (well, almost, we'll get to that later) about the experience was positive, interesting, and fun. The booth was hidden behind the Ubisoft one, and was encircled by folding tables covered in drawings. As with many artists who are convention exhibitors, the guys from The Behemoth passed the time by doodling, and (for the first time for these guys) allowing other people to doodle there too. Though the staff in the booth was constantly changing and there was a general commotion around where people were drawing, we were still able to get some good information and impressions. We were able to talk with one of the creators of Castle Crashers, as well as the original hit, Alien Hominid. We were able to play through the demo several times in a few different levels, and we got to see the reaction from the surrounding crowd, most of whom had never heard of the game before seeing it there.
Given that X3F now has a presence in the city-by-the-bay, and that the comic-book and popular culture convention WonderCon was taking place there (right across the street, in fact, from where GDC was last week), we thought we'd bring you the video game goings-on from the convention floor. While not a strictly video game event, WonderCon did see the appearance of several large publishers and a small developer. The three main companies who were there were Ubisoft, who were showing off Lost: Via Domus and Rainbow Six: Vegas 2; Capcom who showed video of Street Fighter IV and had DMC4 playable (Capcom had more, but they were on other systems) and last but definitely not least were The Behemoth who had a playable demo of Castle Crashers.
There'll be Hands-on Impressions of both Castle Crashers and Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 later in the day. Till then hit the break and check the gallery to get the full story on the WonderCon video game scene.
When The Behemoth's crew isn't too busy making customtrophies, or working on Castle Crashers, they're obviously throwing together some PDA stages for Alien Hominid HD. The second pack of 100 PDA levels is now available on Xbox Live Marketplace for 150 Microsoft Points. If you're in a spending mood, you can also pick up some new gamer pictures, as there are two packs with 5 pics a piece, each for 100 MS Points. Do you play the PDA minigame in Alien Hominid? If so, do you play solo or multiplayer?
Showing what an awesome development team they are, The Behemoth gave Major Nelson a custom, hand made FBI Agent trophy. This was in thanks for his support of their first title for Xbox Live Arcade, Alien Hominid HD, back in late February. Now, some of you may remember that The Behemoth was going to give awaytrophies for those at the top of the leaderboards of the game.
Major, being an MS employee was not eligible to win, no matter how mad his skillz, so they hooked him up with this absolutely badass trophy, and he's posted pics on his flickr page of the gift and the thank you letter included in the package. Hopefully, The Behemoth will remember X3F and our GDC interview when Castle Crashers lands on Arcade, right guys?
Those of us lost in the Egyptian ball busting action found in Luxor 2 may have missed the new content available for Alien Hominid HD. The new content adds 100 new levels to the PDA mini-game found in Alien Hominid HD. The new levels can be had for the pittance of 150 Microsoft Points. In addition to the new levels, 2 new Alien Hominid picture packs are available for 100 points each. Sure, it's not as exciting as, say, Castle Crashers, but it might be a worthy purchase if you've got some spare points in your account, which you probably do if you bought Luxor 2. Funny how that works out, isn't it?
We ran a story on Friday stating that Castle Crashers will release in 2008 because of the recent size limit increase on Xbox Live Arcade games. This info was apparently communicated to Joystiq during GDC. Since running the story, The Behemoth's Tom Fulp contacted us to let us know that The Behemoth is busy cramming as much as they can into Castle Crashers, but are still adhering to the 50 MB limit. In fact, Fulp noted that The Behemoth enjoys the challenge of meeting the size restriction. It seems the size limit increase is decided on a case by case basis, and The Behemoth has not requested a size increase at this time.
Size increase or not, we wouldn't expect the game to hit anytime soon.
We heard the rumblings. We smelled the awesome. We knew that Castle Crashers was somewhere at GDC. It was just a matter of finding it. After what seemed like days of searching, we found the title in the Independent Games Festival pit, loaded up on an HD screen with some pumping speakers, Castle Crashers was ready and raring to go.
Those Behemoth jerks just keep teasing us with more content for Castle Crashers. Earlier this week, we were treated to a new ninja character and now we discover that there is also a skeleton. We don't know much about him (or her) apart from the fact that he wields a bone firing bow as his long range weapon. Since we know so little, we'll have to make something up. His name -- we have decided -- is Skelly. Now, someone please tell us when we can buy this game.
Face it, everything is better with ninjas. It's like in that movie The Last Samurai when all the ninjas attacked. It was like, "Whoa, ninjas! This movie just got even awesomer!" Imagine that feeling, only applied to Castle Crashers. See, it feels awesome, righ?. The game was already cool and now it has a ninja and is even cooler (and by cool we mean totally sweet). If you thought it couldn't get any better than that, then get this: the ninja carries ... a mug. Not just any mug ... a Ninja Mug. We're not quite sure how it works, but according to the Castle Crashers website, its purpose is "defensive shielding."
When The Behemoth's crew isn't too busy making custom trophies, or working on Castle Crashers, they're obviously throwing together some PDA stages for Alien Hominid HD. The second pack of 100 PDA levels is now available on Xbox Live Marketplace for 150 Microsoft Points. If you're in a spending mood, you can also pick up some new gamer pictures, as there are two packs with 5 pics a piece, each for 100 MS Points. Do you play the PDA minigame in Alien Hominid? If so, do you play solo or multiplayer?
Showing what an awesome development team they are, The Behemoth gave Major Nelson a custom, hand made FBI Agent trophy. This was in thanks for his support of their first title for Xbox Live Arcade, Alien Hominid HD, back in late February. Now, some of you may remember that The Behemoth was going to give away trophies for those at the top of the leaderboards of the game.
Those of us lost in the Egyptian ball busting action found in Luxor 2 may have missed the new content available for Alien Hominid HD. The new content adds 100 new levels to the PDA mini-game found in Alien Hominid HD. The new levels can be had for the pittance of 150 Microsoft Points. In addition to the new levels, 2 new Alien Hominid picture packs are available for 100 points each. Sure, it's not as exciting as, say, Castle Crashers, but it might be a worthy purchase if you've got some spare points in your account, which you probably do if you bought Luxor 2. Funny how that works out, isn't it?
