Castle Crashers (XBLA)

[MisterNoisy]

Good lord this game is absurdly fun.  Totally worth both the $15 and the ~2 years in development.

[Nonentity]

Agreed! I'm playing through right now as the Blue Knight - just beat the Cat Fish boss.

[MisterNoisy]

Playing with a couple of coworkers, and the online play is seamless.  Somewhere between the CPR mechanic, racing each other to drops and weapons/critters and the bit at the end of stages where you have to duke it out with your teammates for the right to kiss the princess, this is just about the perfect co-op game.

[Nonentity]

I'm up to the point where the two levels I can attempt are the Industrial Fortress (using the sandwich to get in the door) or the Lava Field - I'm level 22.

Ranking up your magic makes a HUGE difference.

[Prospero]

This is the game I've wanted to buy an XBox for. I Alien Hominid a lot.

[lesion]

It is great.

Addendum: multiplayer code isn't the best; couldn't keep a 4-player Live game going without dropping people constantly. Oh wells.

[Yegolev]

I give this game a good score.

[MrHat]

Cool.

What's this I hear about lag/connection issues?

[schild]

The network code is dick. Total dick.

[MisterNoisy]

Cool.

What's this I hear about lag/connection issues?

No idea - all of my online sessions have been pretty solid.

[Yegolev]

I have only played single-player mode so far.  I find that there are some people who will kill a MP game on XBL no matter the title... unfortunately if I'm playing a military game, I'm playing with that guy so it's just part of the deal.  Here I'd say that you should choose your mates wisely, but I'll have more later after I do some MP.

[murdoc]

I was playing 3 player local play Saturday night and it was a Hell of a lot of fun. Great game imo

[LK]

The game keeps crashing whenever I try to look for multiplayer games. Like, every time.

[Driakos]

I haven't had even a single hiccup in multiplayer.  Granted, all of us are in the same region.

[LK]

I want to play 4 Player Co-Op, but it keeps saying "Game is Not Available" when I do a search. When I do manage to find a game it either lies about the number of slots available (Will indicate 1 when it's closer to 3), then will either crash on me while loading the game, crash while idling in the lobby, crash while searching for a game, or, best of all, show a Loading Screen in the middle of any of these actions that crashes the game.

Crash in this case means hardlock of the system.

Edit: Turns out its a known issue and a patch is forthcoming.

[Abelian75]

Good god, this game is fun as hell.

[Azazel]

It just seems to be a 4-player co-op beat-em-up.

Am I missing anything?

[MrHat]

It just seems to be a 4-player co-op beat-em-up.

Am I missing anything?

Nope.

[HAMMER FRENZY]

I feel I am in the minority cause I can't stand this game in the slightest. It just doesn't hold my interest for long, online or off. I think it is just the overall character/enemy homogenization that makes me want to vomit, then eat my own vomit. It made go back and play older brawlers and feel warm and fuzzy again...I don't like this game.

[Yegolev]

But what about the wildlife with explosive diarrhea?  Abobo never sprayed shit out of his ass like a water rocket.

[HAMMER FRENZY]

ha yeah, absurdity does not a good beat'em up make.

[Rasix]

Beating shit up does, though.  This seems to do that in the simple way it was intended.

I don't think I've played many brawers since my mid teens,  so I don't have a large sample size with which to compare.  Attempts to go back and play older ones have mostly been met by yawns and astonishment at how bad the movement is in them.

[Yegolev]

I agree with this.  Seems like I tried to play Final Fight recently and it was very MUH.

[LK]

So let's get a 4 player Castle Crasher game going.  Just gimme a time in the evening PST and I'll be there.

[HAMMER FRENZY]

Yeah, I actually enjoy playing old brawlers. Especially Streets of Rage 2 and 3, TNT Hyperstone Heist, and of the Sengoku games, Final Fight 2 and 3, The Golde Axe series, Guardian Heroes, Double Dragon on the GBA Etc. I like beat em' ups.

There is a lot I don't like about Castle Crashers, and most of it is just how boring the game gets for me. I really think that it has to do with the enemies being totally identical in everything minus appearance. Even their special moves are just different looking "arrows". They use them identically for the most part, at the same time, in the same way at the same distances. It just makes it not fun for me. Enemy types with actual behavior scripts that are more than, walk aimlessly, chop at this distance, arrow at this distance, would be nice. And this , "oh this guy can't be launched as high, while this guy is less susceptible to magic" are just lazy. The reason Beat em' ups are fun is because of the combination of enemy types thrown at a player/players, and the strategy used to dispatch them. At this point, the only viable options in this game are launch, chop X 34, or magic bs. It is just boring as hell and it is because they chose to make all the enemies playable and the only way to do what was to homogenize the fighting system and that left us with 20 + characters who all fight the exact same and have some different magics which are all pretty much re-skinned versions of the 5 or 6 magic types. It is lame sauce. Even the 4 main characters are generally identical aside from their magic systems which "red" and "green" completely own. The game seems like, by itself, will have very little to offer after the "gotta collect them all' bs of the boring ass characters wears off. Weapons are almost pointless, as they add or subtract from various stats, but the +3 to my speed is not really important at higher levels. Not only that, ranges are almost identical for each weapon, and the slowest weapons are brought up to par by just focusing on increasing your speed stat. It completely defeats the class mentality of beat em ups. There is no, fast weak guy, or slow strong guy, cause they are all just slower, faster versions of the same archeatype.

So anyway, as a $15 XBLA game, sure. As a great beat em' up. No.

The good thing is that is not really trying to be a good beat em' up, it is just a multiplayer arcade style game,and that is all good, I just can't get into it cause I get super bored ultra fast with it.

[RUiN 427]

seems everytime someone gains a level in co-op the connection drops and the game ends... anyone heard when they are going to fix this?

[Nonentity]

How's Too Human going?

[RUiN 427]

How's Too Human going?

snooze fest

[Yegolev]

I have never been able to start or join a co-op of Castle Crashers, so I'm guessing it will be a long time.