PlayStation Network: Fat Princess

Man its been a while since I’ve written a review.  You can’t blame me though, nothing of interest was coming out of the studios that would entice me to spend money, except for the one game I kept seeing getting mentioned on multiple gaming websites.  That game is of course Fat Princess for the PS3, which leads me to Respect The Review’s newest game review in about a month…

Fat Princess by Titan Studios reminds me of the business metaphor involving a person wearing multiple hats representing the different jobs said person does.  This game is like that metaphor in which you, the player, are able to obtain abilities from the 5 different class hats available to you to help in your objective of rescuing your princess.  This leads to unique gameplay as you are able to change your class in the middle of the fight to try different attack patterns and obtain your objective.

Gameplay

Fat Princess reminded me of a cross between Diablo and Starcraft.  In a way, it plays like an action-RPG (hacking and slashing) and a real-time strategy game (gathering of resources and upgrades).  Everything is set in a cartoonish universe where one of your objectives could be to rescue a morbidly obese princess who binges on cake, kill away in team deathmatch or strategically control all outposts in a game while using simple controls and movements.

The game is primarily for online play, though it does give you the option to play a storyline that acts like a set of practice rounds, using the four main types of gameplay you will encounter online: Rescue the Princess, Snatch ‘n’ Grab (same as Rescue the Princess, just repeated multiple times), Team Deathmatch and Invasion (hold outpost for the duration of the game).  This is all done to a brilliantly narrated story by Tom Kane, whom some of our readers out there might recognize as the voice of the narrator and Jedi Master Yoda from Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series.  He gives some excellent sayings while play such as ” Their in our base, killing our dudes!”.  Classic.  The story is narrated like a fairy tale but does not carry much substance.  It is more of a way for players to acclimatize themselves to the game before venturing to online matches and facing the objectives against 31 other live players.  I will say that when I originally purchased the game, it was buggy online and took a long time to locate a playable match (upwards of five minutes before timing out).  Once a patch was released, it became a lot better in in both respects, even though there is still a little lag in some areas.  Not much, but noticeable none the less.  Another thing in the game that can sometimes be a drag is the amount of time you spend on one level.  Since there is no time limit on games, you keep playing until a team wins or the host leaves the game.

Obtaining objectives is all done with the help of the five different machines spurning out their specific hats, giving you five unique upgradable classes to meet your objectives.  These unique classes are the Warrior, Mage, Priest (healer), Ranger (ranged weapons) and Worker.  Each with its own primary and secondary abilities, each with its own strength and weaknesses that will have you and your group customizing your plans every game on the 8 different levels available.  On top of that, each level also has its own pitfalls and hazards (lava, water, cliffs).

Beyond you primary online gameplay, you also have other choices available to you in single player mode that I find quite entertaining.  If you are home alone or you get tired of hearing the same person on your team criticizing everyone when it’s THERE fault for barging in the castle like an idiot (you know who you are…).  Anyways, first up you have Gladiate, which if you’ve seen anything involving a gladiator you cleary understand that it’s you versus whatever the game throws at you, and you can choose from the five classes available in the game (all upgraded to their secondary abilities).  The next one which I find to be hilarious is the Soccer Match. You heard me right, Soccer Match.  It’s you and fifteen of your fellow computer players versus sixteen other computer players as you each try to score on each others goals while dodging fire, shots and bombs from both sides of the field.  Soccer has never been more entertaining I say!  One other interesting thing you are able to do is customize your own player that people will see in these matches.  You unlock more accessories and looks for all the different achievements you unlock while playing the game.

Visuals

Like I stated earlier, the game is very cartoonish but that doesn’t draw away from it.  I think it actually helps enhance your enjoyment of game.  There’s just something about watching animated people spilling blood and gore around a cartoon landscape in a frenzied motion.  The look of the game is very crisp and clean, everything is colored and shaded extremely well.  Titan does an excellent job of not making the maps appear dull after playing them several times over.

Final Thoughts

Besides the fact that Fat Princess may give you the odd urge to have some cake (as what happened to me), it will entertain you with its witty in-game narration and satisfy any hack and slash cravings you may have.  Overall, Titan Studios did a great job in creating a fun download for the Playstation Network and an enjoyable game for those of us in the gaming community. I hope to see new material from them soon.

Game on!

_Ruben

(Ruben can be reached at gaminganomaly@gmail.com)

Score: 3 out of 5

The Respect:

- Fun, enjoyable gameplay
- 32 Multi-player action
- Great levels and excellent narration

The Disrespect:

- Some lag and gameplay issues
- Long games