Joystiq eyes-on: Fat Princess
The easiest way to describe Fat Princess for PSN is to say it's Team Fortress 2 populated by demented My Sims. It's a multiplayer "capture the flag" game, except that the flag is a princess who is more difficult to carry back to base the more the opposing team feeds her cake, which magically grows in the forest around the castle.
The action takes place in a colorful fantasy land where opposing teams need to reach the other's base, grab their princess and get back to the castle. The princess will lose the weight if she's not constantly fed, so if a team focuses on just combat instead of feeding the princess, the opposing team will have an easier time carrying her away once they inevitably infiltrate the castle.
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Sony's producer for the game tells us Fat Princess was a last-second addition to the company's E3 line up, but we're glad it was there. Although the game is quite charming and we were hoping to hear a release date for this year, it's being developed by brand new developer Dark Star, which doesn't expect the game to be finished until 2009.
Fat Princess is expected to support up to 32-players in online competition. The host will be able to choose the number of combatants that can enter a match and customize the conditions for victory. An offline single player match will be possible with AIs, while offline multiplayer is still being worked out with no determination on how it'll work.
Each player starts with a basic character and putting on one of the hats scattered about the base will turn it into a Worker (Engineer), Swordsman, Archer, Wizard or Priest.The classes we saw were easy to understand. The Worker builds doors for the castle, creates fire pits for Archers to light their arrows and various other skills. The Archer shoots, the Swordsman is the tank, the Wizard uses ranged spells and the Priest deals out the healing.
Although we didn't get to play it, the controls are pretty basic with buttons assigned to attack, jump, pick up and alt-fire. This isn't a totally cute cartoony game as characters will drop copious amounts of blood when attacked.
A lot about Fat Princess can change between now and 2009, but from what we saw there is a charm to the game, which could make it very enjoyable for those looking for a different kind of Team Fortress 2 experience.
