Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Raskulls Hands-On

Raskulls is the addictive little game - with the Castle Crashers art style - by Halfbrick Studios. It is being compared to Dig Dug, Mr. Driller, Mario Kart, and other multiplayer party games. I can tell you that all of this is true and more.

Raskulls fast-paced addictive gameplay includes a full story campaign as well as competitive multiplayer. The story is three chapters long with roughly twenty levels per campaign. The game is exclusive to Xbox Live Arcade unlike the studios other games which have ranged from PSP Minis to various other platforms such as the DS and the original Xbox.

The inspiration for the game was described as the desire to make a simple pick up and play title in the vein of a Mario Kart type party game; having played against another person, those last few seconds of a race get very hectic. I even managed to eek out one of my few wins by being on top of my opponents head. You can also add bots to your multiplayer match (they vary in skill based on four difficulty levels ranging from easy to intense). My opponent and I were bested several times by the, quicker than believable, bots (and we were only on hard - one level below intense). It becomes very clear that this will be a very popular title over Xbox Live or whenever you have friends over. It has four player same box multiplayer and the same over Live.

You know when a developer says that when something like this is more fun to make rather than making a big budget title, something good is bound to come of it.

There was no clear date and price set down for the game but the Halfbrick representative that I had the pleasure of spoking to said that summer looked ideal along with a tentative price of ten to fifteen dollars. Whenever it releases I will be first in line the download queue.

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