Back in 2008, The Behemoth released one of the most downloaded games in XBLA history – Castle Crashers. It was well received by both gamers and critics alike. Now 5 years later The Behemoth has released its second venture into XBLA, BattleBlock Theather, and they have set themselves a great task of living up to the heights reached by their previous release.
BattleBlock Theater is a tradition side scrolling platform game. Those at home in the platform genre will pick up the run, jump and punch mechanics quickly. The single player game starts off with a group of friends crashing their (friend)ship on a mysterious island. Finding refuge in an abandoned theatre, best friend of the group Hatty Hattington gets converted into a caretaker for what is to become their prison after an evil top hat is put on his head. It’s up to you to play through each of the levels in the prison, each of which is set out on a stage, where you perform for the cats which inhabit the prison.
Now, that all probably sounds a bit loony. And that’s because it is. From the get go, the games narrator shows off his zany nature with some crazy voiceovers, which will continuously leave a smirk on your face. None of it makes sense, but it’s amusing nonetheless. And it’s the voiceovers that make the narrator the star of the game, from mocking your performances through the levels, to providing commentary to the weird cardboard puppet style cut scenes that tell the games story between levels.
As with all platforming games, it is down to you to figure out the best way to beat the jumping puzzles to beat the level, which are strewn with different obstacles. On normal difficulty there are checkpoints on the way. To unlock the level exit you need to collect at least 3 gems, although there are usually many more to find and collect along with a ball of wool. These are then used to determine your rating for the level. Gems are used between levels to unlock a whole slew of customisation options for your little character (all purely cosmetic), and the balls of wool unlock new weapons.
Each level compromises of a lot of separate blocks. Each of the blocks has a different feature to master, they may disappear, may be made of ice, lasers, bounce and many more. You are slowly introduced to each in order to master them on their own before quickly thrown into levels combining many different obstacles to keep each level completely fresh and new, and always has you on your toes as to what to do next. There are also plenty of punishing deaths along with way from water traps, spike traps and AI enemies littering the levels. And playing through on co-op only enhances the games levels with previously inaccessible areas making replayability with a friend, with the introduction of more puzzle areas, like playing the game from scratch again, but without the worry of staleness.
The game has crisp and colourful visuals throughout. The cartoony art design is sharp and a pleasure to watch in action. There is huge content on offer aswell with the 80+ single player and co-op levels to start with. There is also competitive multiplayer locally and online with games ranging from king of the hill, to a graffiti style mode where painting the most areas of a level sees you win. And if that isn’t enough, and you aren’t happy with the levels designed by the team at The Behemoth, they challenge you to do better with an easy to use level creator/editor. Placing blocks around and altering colour schemes is a breeze and you are able to share your levels with the online world, and play others creations.
BattleBlock Theater is a game that any platform game far will enjoy, and it’s cute graphics and weird and wonderful humour will bring a smile to even the most serious of gamer. For the amount of content on offer, it is worth a punt for a download, even if you only play for 15-20 minutes at a time. It would seem as though The Behemoth have another title which will no doubt hit the XBLA sales leaderboards in the near future.
