She's Really Uhhh, Fat, Man
Really? Fat Princess lives up to the name? Oh yes, that and so much more.
Published: August 16, 2009
Ever since its debut at last year's Electronic Entertainment Expo, where the basic concept of force-feeding a ravenous girl and spilling blood in quarts was mixed with bright, colorful storybook visuals, Fat Princess' appeal has been obvious. The game's developer, Titan Studios, toiled for what seemed like ages on it, and now, finally, we have the end result -- a fairly deep, immensely addictive and painfully strategic game that relies on one of the things most PlayStation 3 owners lack: a headset.
It's fair to say the game doesn't rely on a headset so much as it absolutely requires it. In a game where typical strategies like bum rushing the enemy base to kidnap their princess and lock her away in your dungeon is met with near-instant death and an absolute stalemate of offensive power, cunning, collaboration and communication are absolutely key. Unfortunately, most people playing the game simply don't have the means to talk to each other, and the result is either an agonizingly protracted back-and-forth where nothing happens or a hilariously (and often infuriating) one-sided battle that's over with alarming speed.
It might be fun for the winning team) which will continue to win as long as teams aren't balanced, which doesn't happen often, but there are few things as off-putting as heading into a game only to get steamrolled by people who know what they're doing. If you don't have a headset, don't play Fat Princess, it's as simple as that.
Well, it's not that simple; there are things the game does that are unquestionably attractive, such as keeping each of the game's five classes (Worker, Warrior, Ranger, Priest and Mage) busy with their own unique roles, plus the additional advantage of gathering resources and upgrading existing structures or building new ones, but the bulk of the game comes down to who can out-strategize the other team more, and that comes down to talking.
That said, if you're stuck with nothing but silence coming out of your headset, you can at least enjoy the game's particular brand of capture the flag. For those that haven't been following things, the main goal is simple: grab the other princess, bring her back to your castle and keep her there for a minute. Complicating things is both princess' love of all things frosted. By chucking pieces of cake at her face, she'll gobble 'em up and get progressively fatter, thus making her harder to carry and requiring more teammates to carry her out of the enemy castle (again, something that really does need some communication before attempting). You're afforded a limited amount of voice-free banding together by pressing up on the d-pad to pull AI or user-controlled teammates into an impromptu squad, but that's about it.
If it were just donning hats (you can pick up any hat at any time, instantly changing class), the game would be mildly entertaining, but there's an impressive amount of depth in just five classes. Warriors, for instance, get far more life than other classes, and they're able to dole out the most damage, which in turn nets them the most points for fulfilling their role. These points contribute to a nebulous rank (there's no way to know how close you are to leveling up, and you can actually drop in rank), but at least they provide some incentive to play the role of your class. Priests can rack up points for healing, Workers for gathering resources like wood and ore, Mages for freezing enemies in place and Rangers for whittling away at enemies from afar.
It's fair to say the game doesn't rely on a headset so much as it absolutely requires it. In a game where typical strategies like bum rushing the enemy base to kidnap their princess and lock her away in your dungeon is met with near-instant death and an absolute stalemate of offensive power, cunning, collaboration and communication are absolutely key. Unfortunately, most people playing the game simply don't have the means to talk to each other, and the result is either an agonizingly protracted back-and-forth where nothing happens or a hilariously (and often infuriating) one-sided battle that's over with alarming speed.
It might be fun for the winning team) which will continue to win as long as teams aren't balanced, which doesn't happen often, but there are few things as off-putting as heading into a game only to get steamrolled by people who know what they're doing. If you don't have a headset, don't play Fat Princess, it's as simple as that.
Well, it's not that simple; there are things the game does that are unquestionably attractive, such as keeping each of the game's five classes (Worker, Warrior, Ranger, Priest and Mage) busy with their own unique roles, plus the additional advantage of gathering resources and upgrading existing structures or building new ones, but the bulk of the game comes down to who can out-strategize the other team more, and that comes down to talking.
That said, if you're stuck with nothing but silence coming out of your headset, you can at least enjoy the game's particular brand of capture the flag. For those that haven't been following things, the main goal is simple: grab the other princess, bring her back to your castle and keep her there for a minute. Complicating things is both princess' love of all things frosted. By chucking pieces of cake at her face, she'll gobble 'em up and get progressively fatter, thus making her harder to carry and requiring more teammates to carry her out of the enemy castle (again, something that really does need some communication before attempting). You're afforded a limited amount of voice-free banding together by pressing up on the d-pad to pull AI or user-controlled teammates into an impromptu squad, but that's about it.
If it were just donning hats (you can pick up any hat at any time, instantly changing class), the game would be mildly entertaining, but there's an impressive amount of depth in just five classes. Warriors, for instance, get far more life than other classes, and they're able to dole out the most damage, which in turn nets them the most points for fulfilling their role. These points contribute to a nebulous rank (there's no way to know how close you are to leveling up, and you can actually drop in rank), but at least they provide some incentive to play the role of your class. Priests can rack up points for healing, Workers for gathering resources like wood and ore, Mages for freezing enemies in place and Rangers for whittling away at enemies from afar.
