Castle Crashers.

[Super Buu]

They've finally released the update to fix some of the bugs which were turning people off, as well as some DLC. I went back to play this morning, and it's still the best 360 arcade game.

For you poor poor bastards who still haven't played it, Castle Crashers is a side-scrolling beat-em-up made by the Newgrounds dudes that made Alien Hominid. It has fucking 4-player co-op, online and offline. You also level up and spend your stat points on strength, magic, defense or agility. There are weapons like the lightsaber, lollipop and steak. You also collect tiny retarded animals ('animal orbs') who all give a different bonus when you equip them. For example, there is a dog who digs up stuff, a giraffe who gives you bonus experience, and a hawk who pecks downed enemies and brings you food.

The joy of Castle Crashers is that it's made for altwhores like me, since most characters unlock a new character by completing the game with them (and then those secret characters unlock another, for each character). It's sweet, and means that people are constantly restarting as level 1s. So buy it, you fags, and play it with me. It's only 1200 points, which is an absolute bargain considering how long I've spent playing it.

My GT is zrogerg. Now go.

[Kaden]

I played this at GDC a year or two ago before it came out and remember being quite impressed.

Aside from Everyday Shooter it demolished the other XBL games on display.

[Super Buu]

Forgot to mention, there's also a trial you can download for free on the arcade. So no excuses!

Oh, and as if you needed more convincing, I forgot to mention that the music in this game is awesome. Better than most of the music in the full-price games I've played in the past year.

[Shun]

This game is addicting. It's crack, anyone who hasn't played should at least give the trial a go. Shit iz fun. Especially with other people.

[Belle Hibiki]

Hahaha. Played this a bit today. Man, I think I should've put some points into Defense. (It's all balanced between Attack and Magic right now.)

[Super Buu]

Yeah, you need a little bit of defense even for the kamikazi builds, even just 2 or 3 points stops you getting slaughtered so much. I levelled up my Orange Knight as pure strength with magic on the side, that was fun. Especially when I teamed up with a guy that was pure magic with strength on the side. We pretty much ripped through everything.

Recently I've tried pure agility as well on my thief. It's really not as gimped as people say it is. Sure, some situations you absolutely suck ... but the same could be said with pure strength and magic. Problem is that it gets exponentially better, meaning that the early levels just suck balls. Best way (as with most things) is to level another attack stat on the side.

What are u guyz gamertags?

[Belle Hibiki]

f0rehead.

Just finished a 3-hour run with my brother in tow. Started with new characters. I ended up going pure, raw Defense for a change of pace, only really dipping into strength once Def was fully maximized. My brother was the poison knight and went max magic with a side of Defense, though not nearly as much as me.

I think I had to res him like 20+ times, but he had to get me... once?

I had no idea you dueled for the kiss at the end of a level. That was fan-fucking-tastic.

[Super Buu]

Yeah, there's an achievement for getting a kiss from every princess in multiplayer. I got mine last night, it's an awesome feeling beating the shit out of your friends after competing with each other for kills and gold so long. I WIN BITCH!

I'm gonna go online now if you want a game.

[Belle Hibiki]

You know, as fun as this game is, calling multiplayer a clusterfuck is somewhat of an understatement.

[Super Buu]

Clusterfuck is exactly what 4-player should be, unless you just mean 'not fun'. It's just hard finding a good group of four unless you organise it, since people tend to all pick random levels and don't bother communicating.

By pure luck earlier I picked my pure agi character and ended up with another in the same party. Seemed like a bad idea in theory but holy shit. We destroyed everything bar bosses with hardly any effort. When an enemy is being juggled by two people rapid-firing arrows at once, it's apparently very easy to keep them there forever.

[Belle Hibiki]

My experience was only with two players, and when I say 'clusterfuck' I mean that, very often, gameplay degenerated into a formless blob of wild color at the center of my screen. Between my brother spamming his poison burst and the jacked up number of enemies, I had a very, VERY hard time seeing where I was 75% of the time. For the last hour or so I just spammed Jump + Light + HeavyHeavyHeavyHeavy constantly because there was no point trying to judge where I was or what mobs to go after. In fact, pausing to do so was liable to get me gangbanged.

I mean, I had fun, but it's very hard to say I knew what the fuck was going on. Maybe it gets better in 4-player.

[Super Buu]

Maybe it gets easier the more you play it? Now that I think back, I had some pretty similar experiences when I first got the game. But since the controls and combos are second nature to me now, I have no trouble juggle-comboing enemies to hell when there are other players on the screen.

If you're good, you can even co-ordinate your attacks together. Like, when I was playing as the king, we'd naturally 'group together' so that my heals would hit them (the king's heal is weak as hell so you need to cast it rapid-fire to be useful, and it only works when you're right next to someone) and when me and the other max-agi guy were juggling opponents together and rendering them helpless.

[Belle Hibiki]

It's really very annoying to have people tell you that the answer to your problems with gameplay is to get better.

[Shun]

I think he was going more along the lines of. "Work together better"

Just wanted to toss in that when I did play it was at a friends on his account. I have no LIVE account, I just wanted to let it be known so you wouldn't think I just ignored your request for gamertags.

[Belle Hibiki]

I didn't really have trouble working together with my brother or combos, though. I've been playing videogames since the Super Nintendo came out; it's not like the combo system is some strange, alien structure to me. I did my best to keep mobs from coming at my brother's back, leveraging my insane amounts of Defense and juggle combos, while he nuked the shit out of anything in front of him.

But still, a great deal of the time I found myself swarmed under by mobs. This game is extremely busy, visually speaking. After an hour or so I just gave up trying to keep track in those situations. What I would have KILLED FOR is some sort of indicator. Small, unobtrusive, maybe an arrow over my head, similar to when you just start a level, to give my eyes something easy to lock on to.

[Super Buu]

Not so much 'get better'. Just get used to it. That takes time with any game. And I could've been wrong; all I know is nowadays, multiplayer isn't much more confusing than single player. Though the game is always pretty nuts with enemies coming from all directions, single-player or otherwise. S'why it should be a clusterfuck in 4-player.

You want hard to keep up with, try fuckin' God Hand. Dodging attacks from 7 dudes whilst trying to do any real damage = hard.