GAMING 101: ‘Fat Princess’ is delicious fun
The “Fat Princess” beta allows PlayStation 3 owners to combine three of life’s greatest guilty pleasures – cake, blood and mayhem. Gaming has never been so exquisite.
“Fat Princess” is a hilarious medieval battle royale. The goal is to rescue your team’s princess from the opponent’s fortress.
However, rescuing your beloved princess is no simple feat; your adversary has been stuffing her full of cake, which means moving her will require teamwork and coordination.
Both teams are composed of up to 16 players with different character classes: worker, warrior, ranger and mage. And changing classes is as simple as picking up a hat.
So what inspired such a unique game design? I asked game producer Chris Millar this question and he said it just made sense.
“Rescuing a princess is something that many people can relate to, as there are so many classic fairy tales that deal with this type of story arc,” he said.
As for the gameplay, Millar said he is drawn to games like “Team Fortress 2” and “Warcraft.”
With the game’s release date imminent yet pending, developer Titan Studios let loose a beta version to a lucky group of gamers, and I thankfully got in.
So, am I impressed with the beta? Read on to find out.
Pros
Cake – The cake says it all: “Fat Princess” is competitive and challenging, yet equally silly and ridiculous. Everything from the comical premise to the bright cartoony graphics makes this an entertaining and light-hearted title.
Blood – Despite looking like a Saturday morning cartoon, “Fat Princess'” irreverent gameplay is anything but childish. Players hack, slash and disembody their opponents in an exceptionally gratifying manner.
However, I need to address one complaint at the request of a 13-year-old boy, with whom I was playing this game yesterday. In his own words, “They should make the blood stick to your feet, so when you run around you leave footprints.”
Yeah, what he said. Are you listening Titan Studios? We demand more realistic bloodshed.
Mayhem – Imagine 32 players frantically running around massacring each other in an online battle. It’s awe-inspiring and tumultuous.
Cons
Buggy – Granted, “Fat Princess” is only in beta, but the overall experience is trifled with glitches.
The online play is bogged down with lag and the single player campaign features atrocious computer artificial intelligence. For example, the computer occasionally stays in one place running in circles.
Overwhelming – There’s a lot going on in this game and players will undoubtedly feel overwhelmed.
Furthermore, the user manual does a mediocre job explaining all the details, effectively making the game more trial and error based than it needs to be.
That said, after playing the “Fat Princess” beta, I’m convinced this game will be a success and rise to cult status. Stay tuned later this summer for the release of “Fat Princess” on the PlayStation Network.
And that’s a wrap folks. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this gaming column during the past two semesters as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. It’s been a privilege to share my gaming love with Statesman readers and I’m flattered by all the feedback and support I’ve received.
Sadly, this gaming column will not be returning during the fall semester. Instead, I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be writing a new column while attending Kansai Gaidai University in Japan.
The new column will feature topics ranging from day-to-day living, cultural shock and yes, even gaming.
As a special thank you to my readers, I’m giving away one beta code for “Fat Princess” and one code for the recent “Resident Evil 5” versus mode (PS3 version).
The first two people to send me an e-mail will get a code. Be sure to specify which one you want.
Have a great summer.
–tim.russell@aggiemail.usu.edu