There is so little information available on The Behemoth’s latest game that it’s working title, “Game #3”, is still in use. The fact sheet given to me at Comic-Con is, for the most part, covered in TBAs, and what isn’t is (purposely) covered by the head of one of the game’s characters. Despite the fact that this game seems to barely exist yet as far as the amount of information released on it goes, I got a chance to play it, and I can’t wait to play some more.
You know The Behemoth’s work from Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers, two very fun titles that took genres we know and love from the days of 2D, and put them right back in the spotlight in this age of voice acting, cutscenes and cinematics. With Game #3, the aim is to make a single-player experience that’s flanked by an engrossing and addictive multiplayer mini-game collection. The multiplayer is what I got a chance to check out, as three of the different game modes were on display at Comic-Con.
The first of these was a game where you fought for each other’s souls by bouncing on your opponent’s heads (there were two teams of two in San Diego, but Behemoth hasn’t announced just how many people can play in a match at once yet) or by using a variety of weapons–boomerang, explosive frisbee, grenades, fireballs–to take them out. You gained points every few seconds for holding on to their souls, but they can just as easily take yours away and then get themselves some points. It’s very fast, very frantic, and loads of fun. The levels are designed in a way that you can run around aimlessly and still bump into your opposition, which is either a good thing for you or a terrible thing, based on who is better with jumping or with a weapon. I was told that some of the weapons still need to be balanced, as some cause too much destruction relative to the others, but even with that the game was a blast.
The second game mode was somewhat like the soul stealing one, except there was a golden fish flying around that would drop gold. You would pick up the gold blocks it dropped and try to make it back to the drop point for them; whichever team had the most gold blocks at the end wins. You can interrupt people on their way back to making a deposit by attacking them, so if you’ve got a good teammate, you can do some serious damage both collecting and impeding the progress of your opponent.
The last game mode I tried out was a bit different, as the emphasis was not so much on a deathmatch type game, but instead had you trying to finish the level with more colored blocks than your opponent. You run around the level, and every unclaimed block you touch becomes on of your teams. While it flashes, the other team can take it, but once it turns solid it’s yours. The level resets and tallies your points every now and then in order to give you more blocks to color as well. You can still kick around the other team in order to stop them from succeeding, but you won’t want to waste as much with that here unless you have run out of blocks to convert.
All three game types are great fun, even in their early form, and Behemoth promises that there will be more modes when the game does release–whenever that may be. They have not decided on what platforms the game would release on (though the demo I played was on the Xbox 360).
In addition to the game modes, I was shown the character creation screen. There were different heads and faces to choose from so you could give your character a bit of a personal touch, and there are plans to make tons and tons of these in time for release. Same goes for the weapons, which The Behemoth are busy working on to ensure the game is balanced.
We have screens for you above, as well as the first developer diary for the the as of yet unnamed project. We’ll give you more information as it releases, but for now, enjoy.
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