The Behemoth - Rude, Uncouth 'Castle Crashers'
We obviously heart Alien Hominid creators The Behemoth - we've had 'em on the cover of Game Developer magazine, for one. So we're delighted to see that they're showing their new game, Castle Crashers, at Comic-Con, and have confirmed it as an Xbox 360 Live Arcade title.
An earlier version of the game showed last year, but there's now an official website revealing the game's name and that you can "play with up to three friends and discover mind-boggling magic and mystery", woo! Plus, the nice folks at Xboxyde have created a streaming version of the trailer - the one of the official site is ridiculously large.
So, apart from this immediately becoming our most-wanted XBLA title, as someone on NeoGAF pointed out, check out this GameVideos.com footage of the first level and stick around til the end for video of the 'All You Can Quaff' mini-game - yep, it's a button masher which approximates multiplayer medieval feasting, just like Las Vegas buffets of today! Thank you, The Behemoth! [UPDATE: Hey, this Game Informer interview says Alien Hominid is coming to XBLA too later this year - neat!]
Comments
I don't heart The Bohemoth. Alien Hominid is a metal slug, contra ripoff, Castle Crashers is a stupid brawl game, might as well be Streets of Rage, or Final Fight, or the Simpsons game or any number of other brawlers.
I'm all for supporting indies but come on! Have a little originality guys! If this was an Asteroid, Tetris or Pacman clone with their same style everyone would call them out on it but because they are copies of slightly lesser known games no one is saying a thing. Sheesh
Posted by: grumpygamer | July 20, 2006 4:07 PM
That's the whole point... who *makes* those games anymore? And the itself game just looks very vibrant and alive, a worthy next-gen example of the genre (as far as I can tell from the 30 seconds of video I watched). You *are* grumpy, aren't you :P
Posted by: umi | July 20, 2006 4:55 PM
Slightly lesser known games? Let me guess, you're 22, everything you know about the late 20th century was gleamed from VH1, and you just found out a few days ago that "Blue Monday" was not, in fact, originally recorded by Orgy.
I don't think anyone mistook either of those games for an original concept. What Behemoth has done is, let's say, a rather nice "cover" of these games -- slightly updated for the times we live in. Anyone who actually played Contra, or Golden Axe, or say, River City Ransom when they *originally* came out can appreciate it -- sure, we've played it before a trillion times, but it's always nice to play it again, with slightly new rewards.
Posted by: wow | July 21, 2006 4:17 PM
well if we're going to say every game in the same GENRE is a RIPOFF with that stubborn close-minded track....then halo is a ripoff of half-life 2 is a ripoff of quake 3 which is a ripoff of medal of honor which is a ripoff of quake 1.
if you actually played castlecrashers at comic-con you'd realize there is no way anyone could have made a game like this back then. there are so many more options for attacking as well as spells. games back then had 1 frame swings and 3 or 4 guys on the screen if you were lucky. they are taking oldschool to the NEXT LEVEL. long live 2D!
Posted by: jason | July 25, 2006 12:09 PM