Any game that you play will more than likely have a Capture-The-Flag mode. It’s such a simple concept, yet it never gets old, since it keeps the game so competitive. After years of “capturing the flag” it’s time we try to get our hands on something else…overweight royalty, perhaps? The gameplay of Fat Princess just revolves around a blue team and a red team having to steal their princess back from the castle on the other side of the map. While some may think “Capture the flag games get old, quickly Hollowman. How the hell am I supposed to feel challenged?!” Well, skeptical ones, ever had the flag get larger and become harder to carry? Didn’t think so. That’s the premise of this delightful game, while you are trying to retrieve your princess, the enemies will keep stuffing her with cake, making her harder to carry.

This game doesn’t bother with complicated mechanics, they just throw you in to the world, and want you to have fun. The classes are simple; workers gather resources, mages cast offensive spells, priests can heal, warriors are your muscle, and rangers are used for long-range combat. To change between classes, is as easy as putting on a hat, which I think anybody with ADD can appreciate. The simplicity follows through with pretty much everything in the game, it never gets more complicated than just stealing your princess back and protecting her. I found myself hopping into a few games with people who knew what they were doing, and the matches lasted an extremely long time; it pretty much just felt like a stalemate. While some matches dragged on, it was one of the most fun times i’ve had with a PSN title.

They actually added a single player campaign in this mostly-multiplayer affair, but don’t get too excited, it’s very short. How short you ask? The story mode has six chapters, which you will probably beat in one sitting. They really just threw the single player campaign in there to get you acquainted with the mechanics of the game. For instance, in one Chapter you will have to take over outposts, while in another you are told to only capture the Princess. Not a very compelling campaign, but I was glad I played through it and thought of some good strategies to use in multiplayer. What little story there is will probably still make you laugh with its odd humor told by a proper British narrator. After you finish the story mode, you can try your hand in the Gladiate Arena and see if you can last a number of rounds against waves of enemies. The arena was kind of nice in between rounds of multiplayer, but nothing really special. I guess for the most part, the single-player stuff feels kind of tacked on, but you will probably be spending most of your time playing online, anyways.

Besides the cutesy graphics, the most charming aspect of the game has to be the humor. You can tell the developers at Titan Studios have a great sense of humor that shows even on the very fist menu. When you boot up the game, you are asked to “Play with Others” or “Play with Yourself”…juvenile? Yes…funny? Hell yeah! I can recall the very first time I walked up to the enemy castle and spotted the princess, a text bubble popped up that said, “Oh my god, Becky, look at her butt! She looks like one of those rap guy’s girlfriends.” That’s not the only Sir-Mix-A-Lot reference, oh no, the credits play the entire song, while you kill the creators of the game…very creative. I think the reason most people will be drawn towards the game is the art style as well, as the humor. It reminds me very much of Happy Tree Friends in many ways, seeing a group of tiny soldiers turn into a giant red splotch. To sum it up, the game feels like Animal Crossing meets Castle Crashers with its perfect blend of cutesy crap and immense pools of blood.

Now, I have raved about how accessible and funny Fat Princess is, but there are some major flaws that not even the trusty, worker class could fix. A game like this really requires teamwork, without it, you will just spend most of the time running around the map like a chicken with your head cut off. It’s a real shame the PS3 isn’t packaged with a microphone, since it makes the game much more enjoyable when you can coordinate a group of guys to raid the enemy castle. Out of the number of games I hopped in, I found very few people with mics, and the sometimes the ones who did, wouldn’t even work as a team, it can become very frustrating. Apart from a few issues with teamwork, I noticed a bit of lag in a few games, as well. While the lag I encountered wasn’t game breaking by any means, it was just a bit annoying.

Fat Princess is a bit pricey, weighing in at fifteen bucks; a somewhat hefty price for a core-multiplayer game…is it still worth a buy? Absolutely! I have never been a fan of games that were strictly multiplayer, and in fact the first few times I played this game, I really didn’t care for it. The thing is, the humor, and the ease of which you can just hop in a game and start raiding a castle are what made the game slowly grow on me. While the game may not be very deep, it really makes up for it with it’s fun factor. For those worried about this game dying out sometime soon, fear not, this game is going to stay lively for quite some time. They have new maps coming in the form of DLC (New Pork City is the first one coming out), and these new maps are going to add more longevity to an already solid experience. Let your inner chubby chaser out and rescue your Fat Princess.