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Battleblock Theater (from makers of Castle Crashers and Alien Hominid)- April 3 Xbox
Darkewolfe
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
It's finally releasing! April 3, 2013! Hooooray!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxHV5n6AkSI
What's this? What's this?
Yes, Battleblock Theater, brought to you by The Behemoth, makers of Castle Crashers and Alien Hominid (and Alien Hominid HD). The game, originally announced in 2009, is finally making its debut.
The game is slated to release only on Xbox 360 as a Marketplace Arcade game. It'll be 1200 Microsoft Points (that's $15 for people who only believe in fiat currency). There have been rumors that it might release on other platforms, but that appears to either have faded into nothingness or is still in the works. The Behemoth seems to have pretty closely aligned with Microsoft on their website, so I wouldn't hold my breath.
The general plot is that the player has shipwrecked on an island filled with prisoners who are now battling in a cartoony arena of mayhem. Players create a character using shapes and different face styles, give them a weapon to use, and control them using a simple control system of running, jumping, punching and firing a weapon.
Punching dazes an opponent while jumping on their head kills them. Players on the same team can stand on each other's heads and help their teammates up ledges. (Yes, there's a lot of co-op team versus team stuff here!) Different weapons have different effects, ranging from explosive devices to effect inducing objects. Levels shown featured different types of blocks, including ones that self-destruct and ones with spikes, as well as hazards such as water and laser cannons. Power-ups include wings that allow players to fly around the level. And a jetpack.
The following Arena Modes will be available for play when the game releases:
Soul: Steal enemy soul and run away. Capture and hold the enemy's souls to gain points. Kill a soul-carrier to release their souls to roam the level.
Muckle: Beat and kill the enemy team to earn your team points.
Challenge: Score the best time on a given level.
King Of The Hill: Stand on the crown blocks to gain your team points.
Color The World: Color more blocks than the other team.
Grab The Gold: Grab more gold from the golden whale than the other team and deposit it in the floating safe to score points for your team
Ball Game: Get the ball in the basket.
Horse: Ride the opposing team's horse to your stables to gain points for your team.
Why the hell did this take so long?
I don't know! From the words of the creator:
Other awesome things to be aware of:
Level Editor! - Why yes, you can make and upload your own levels for other users! Who doesn't love this?
Solo Game Modes, Co-Op Game Modes, Arena Game Modes
Good reading material:
A History of BattleBlock from start to finish
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxHV5n6AkSIHatty Hattington, who has a square head, is adventuring at sea with his nameless friend who has a round head. All of a sudden a storm brews and destroys their boat, leaving them shipwrecked on an island, where they enter a mysterious theater. Hatty, finds a magical hat He gets possessed by it.he becomes the king of the theater and forces the prisoners to do deadly plays. (including his friend, the player character)
What's this? What's this?
Yes, Battleblock Theater, brought to you by The Behemoth, makers of Castle Crashers and Alien Hominid (and Alien Hominid HD). The game, originally announced in 2009, is finally making its debut.
The game is slated to release only on Xbox 360 as a Marketplace Arcade game. It'll be 1200 Microsoft Points (that's $15 for people who only believe in fiat currency). There have been rumors that it might release on other platforms, but that appears to either have faded into nothingness or is still in the works. The Behemoth seems to have pretty closely aligned with Microsoft on their website, so I wouldn't hold my breath.
The general plot is that the player has shipwrecked on an island filled with prisoners who are now battling in a cartoony arena of mayhem. Players create a character using shapes and different face styles, give them a weapon to use, and control them using a simple control system of running, jumping, punching and firing a weapon.
Punching dazes an opponent while jumping on their head kills them. Players on the same team can stand on each other's heads and help their teammates up ledges. (Yes, there's a lot of co-op team versus team stuff here!) Different weapons have different effects, ranging from explosive devices to effect inducing objects. Levels shown featured different types of blocks, including ones that self-destruct and ones with spikes, as well as hazards such as water and laser cannons. Power-ups include wings that allow players to fly around the level. And a jetpack.
The following Arena Modes will be available for play when the game releases:
Soul: Steal enemy soul and run away. Capture and hold the enemy's souls to gain points. Kill a soul-carrier to release their souls to roam the level.
Muckle: Beat and kill the enemy team to earn your team points.
Challenge: Score the best time on a given level.
King Of The Hill: Stand on the crown blocks to gain your team points.
Color The World: Color more blocks than the other team.
Grab The Gold: Grab more gold from the golden whale than the other team and deposit it in the floating safe to score points for your team
Ball Game: Get the ball in the basket.
Horse: Ride the opposing team's horse to your stables to gain points for your team.
Why the hell did this take so long?
I don't know! From the words of the creator:
"Most games have pretty restrictive deadlines. Since we don't have that, we can let the design grow organically. Even though from a fan perspective, it's taken five years, we've used every minute of that for the organic growth of the game. I think the finished product shows that. It seems so long. We're just patient with it: it's really like writing a book."
Other awesome things to be aware of:
Level Editor! - Why yes, you can make and upload your own levels for other users! Who doesn't love this?
Solo Game Modes, Co-Op Game Modes, Arena Game Modes
Good reading material:
A History of BattleBlock from start to finish
What is this I don't even.
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Posts
PA Players:
Forum Handle/Gamertag
Darkewolfe/Digitalwolfe
Skull2185/Skull2185
Skull2185/Skull2185
Definitely picking this up tomorrow!
I look forward to playing this in 3 years when they release it for PC out of the blue.
It could be sooner than that depending on how Microsoft integrates Xbox Arcade with any Games for Windows stuff. You never know!
They won't, and if they do they'll fuck it up royally somehow. Microsoft is fucking terrible at anything to do with Games for Windows
I agree that they've historically been bad at it, but with their overwhelming desire to get into the tablet market with Windows 8 I have to think they're spending some resources trying to get a better app market.
That said, today is the big day! I can't wait to get home and play.
This game has one if the best intro cinematics ever...
Co-op missions are great, on the other hand.
Unlocked a ton of different heads, and i keep going back and forth between two weapons. An electric fan (good for pushing mooks into spikes or into water) and a nerf gun.
Really enjoying this game. Especially the cutscenes/announcer.
This game is so great, but it looks like it just me and you Darkewolf. What's giving you trouble in the arena? Combat takes some getting used to. I haven't played online yet, but I did do local bot matches, and it helped me fight dudes better. Ball Game and the color the world thing are probably my favorites. In my true to life bad at sports self, I scored ~4 goals on myself in Ball Game before I realised the baskets were different colored and corresponded with the teams.
The maps are way smaller than I expected. The combat seems really simplistic. There seem to be some balance problems; which is to say: Getting spawn camped where I literally couldn't leave a starting spot because one guy pinned in both of my team with grenades really pissed me off. There's also some weird glitchiness where you can permanently trap two players underneath you in a corner, and as long as you're willing to not move your character, they can't move.
I also maybe shouldn't have played as much "Steal the Horse" because that seems to be a really simple and therefore not good game mode. There's usually only two paths to travel on, and the game doesn't seem to be well designed around combat involving the horses.
Comics, Games, Booze
Then I got a fan, vacuum and then nerf dart gun. I think the heads are probably random too.
The dodge ball doesn't chuck particularly far, but also lacks the lethality of the frisbee-mine.
I don't understand why there are non-lethal weapons, because they are basically worthless when bomb-frogs and grenades are in game. If the boomerang had a stun time that was maybe twice as long it'd be a good counter.
Apparently I've also forgot how to play platformers. I must have tried the second half of the first time trial 10 times.
Comics, Games, Booze
MP is really skippable in this. The SP campaign is well worth the price of admission. Super hilarious game.
If you can get a co-op partner together, single player and co-op missions are definitely worth it.
The multiplayer was really hyped in the early trailers, but it was clearly only designed as an after thought.
I also really like the challenge mode or whatever it's called where you run through a level coop trying to get the best time and the other team gets a chance after watching the first team go.
If anything my biggest gripe about the MP is that there is no FFA. I keep feeling like it must be in there somewhere and somehow I'm just missing it but alas I guess you really just have to play 2v2. Kind of blows when I have three people available locally on the couch because playing 2v1 is just stupid. I can't really even imagine why there is no way to just play a FFA deathmatch.
Because it's pretty amazing.
Comics, Games, Booze
I have 549 Rock Band Drum and 305 Pro Drum FC's
REFS REFS REFS REFS REFS REFS REFS REFS
Though I was completely unaware that there were special heads you could unlock by playing the "Featured" playlist, and thus I've already missed the two from the first week. That's a little annoying, as I've never been a fan of games that only give you an unlock if you played at a specific time, but fortunately the website seems to indicate that those heads might cycle back into another Featured playlist in the future. And in the meantime there's still like 300 other heads available.
Do what now? I was also completely unaware of this.
It's apparently user-created level packs that the dev's picked, and if you beat them (don't have to get all the gems or do the encores, just beat all the normal levels and the finale) then you unlock a head.
The first week it was a chicken head like their logo (there was also another head just for playing the first week).
This week there are two heads: a donut head if you beat the solo Featured maps, and a chihuahua(maybe? some kind of small dog) head if you beat the co-op ones.
Make sure you do them through the Featured Playlist option though, as apparently if you just do the maps in the regular user content section it won't count. Also some people are reporting a bug with the Co-op one where if you do it online only the host gets it (but local co-op seems to work fine and will let both accounts get it).
Edit: Also, the featured levels are crazy hard.
This just sold me on the game.