Magic, mayhem, floating face-biting bat buddies, fish-swords...what's not to love?

So starts the email announcing that Castle Crashers, one of the most eagerly anticipated Xbox Live Arcade titles of the year has been released by indie developer The Behemoth. This award-winning second title from the team continues in the nostalgic, 2D side-scrolling style, and the humour and quality we expect from the studio makes a welcome return.

This time, the art is all hand-drawn by the very talented Dan Paladin, meaning that Castle Crashers delivers unique high-res visuals like you've never seen.


Featuring a unique blend of beat-em-up action together with some (mild) RPG elements, you can hack, slash and smash your way to victory - all while discovering cute Animal Orbs, who will do everything for you, whether that's finding buried items, or chomping on the enemy's head!

If you're a bit of a masochist, a fan of pain, once you've played the game through in regular mode, you will unlock "Insane Mode", which isn't just a clever name, promising brain-twisting challenges.

Or - if that's not your thing - battle it out in Arena mode, which is a free-for-all, 4-player deathmatch.

If that's really not your thing, you've still got a game with endless replayability either online or by yourself, and if something's bothering you, you can turn off the blood and gore quickly and easily.


Castle Crashers will set you back 1200 Microsoft points, which gets you 20 levels, more than 40 weapons, and more than 20 unlockable characters - making this one of the biggest games ever on Xbox Live Arcade. Want more of a bargain? They're also throwing in a free dashboard theme, and two free gamerpics! Woo!