February 21, 2008 - Castle Crashers is one of our most anticipated Xbox Live Arcade games here at IGN. The follow-up to The Behemoth's Alien Hominid HD, this title once again makes great use of Dan Paladin's art. That alone makes the game instantly appealing, but there's a lot more to this game than just visual flair.

On its surface, Castle Crashers is reminiscent of classic arcade games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or X-Men. There are four heroes on-screen that do battle with a stream of foes in classic beat 'em up fashion. There are two buttons for attack, you can jump and string aerial combos together and double tapping the analog stick in one direction will cause you to sprint. Each color knight has its own special attack that can be done by holding down the right trigger to charge it up. We took charge with an orange guy that could spit out plumes of fire.



That alone would be fun, in most part thanks to the fact that the game can be played with four players cooperatively either online or off. Castle Crashers goes a step further by adding RPG elements to the mix. You can level up each color knight individually by gaining new experience points and buy new weapons and potions at a blacksmith between stages. As you work your way across the 20 stages in the game, you'll improve your character and gain new abilities as you become the ultimate colored knight. We got a quick look at the overworld map and saw that it looks like a basic version of what you see in games like Super Mario 3. You can travel to any unlocked levels at any time and stop by the blacksmith to spend some gold in between stages

Along with a general action board, we played a level that was reminiscent of the speeder-bike level in Battletoads, though not nearly as hard and twenty times weirder. We hopped onto deer and started sprinting to the right while a giant monster nipped at our heels. The goal was to hop over logs blocking the path and guide the deer through doors to avoid slamming into walls. Also, the deer farted incessantly.

Castle Crashers has been a long time coming, but Microsoft claims it will release this summer. Hang tight until then.