Developed for the PlayStation Network by Titan Studios

Published by Sony Computer Entertainment

Rated "T' for Teen. Contain blood and cartoon violence.

They know you’ll rescue the princess. They know that you’ll fight past the outposts and travel across the dangerous river passage. They know you’ll fight valiantly through legions of warriors, archers, and wizards, that you’ll scale their castle walls or burst through the main gates and fight your way through the halls, down the stairwell and into the dungeon where the princess waits for your heroic arms to carry her home. So they’ve started feeding her cake. Lots and lots of cake. Black Forest cake. Mmmmm, yummy cake. So that by the time you fight your way through those defenses, she will literally be too heavy for you to carry home. This is Fat Princess and it’s a new game coming to the PlayStation 3.

The Fat Princess Online Beta started yesterday. Myself and about 250 others began to take part in a process designed to test the game’s performance online and so far there’s been lag and technical issues aplenty. That is, of course, the whole point and over the course of the next few days, as with all video game betas, those issues will quickly disappear, but thankfully there’s an identical offline mode that uses computer-controlled players that delivers a perfect sense of what the game is like.

There are two princesses, with two castles, and all the cake you can eat. Each castle is home to an army of up to sixteen players and when the game begins both castles are holding the other’s princess captive in their dungeon and it’s up to each team to get their princess back while holding onto the one they kidnapped. Essentially its capture-the-flag, but with princesses.

For their part the princesses care little about what’s going on. They’re both spoiled and giggly and seem to like being served on hand-and-foot, especially when it’s by guards bringing them cake. If they don’t eat cake constantly, their waistlines diminishes and so they are in a constant state of hunger. From their dungeon cells they chime out incessant demands of “Cake, please”, “I’m hungry!” and “Feed Me!”.

It’s a funny gag, a politically incorrect one, but I think that speaks more to the nature of fairy tales (which are inherently politically incorrect) than it does the nature of society’s issue with weight gain. If there’s an issue with the game’s humour so far, it’s that there isn’t enough of it. Beyond feeding the girls cake, everything else is down to business.

You play one of the wee, loyal guards and when you spawn into the home castle, you can choose from any of the following roles, from which you can change between at any time:

Cake Duty – You can become a worker and head out onto the battlefield to collect slices of cake that magically appear there and bring them back inside to the captured princess to maintain her plump figure. The larger she is, the slower it will be for an enemy guard to carry her or the more additional guards it will take to join in and accomplish the task.

Defenses And Siege Engines - You can become a worker and build a set of gates for your castle or if you’re courageous make your way to the enemy castle and build springboards and teeter-totters that wil help your teammates leap over the enemy castle walls.

Resources And Upgrades – You can become a worker and chop down trees to collect wood, break rocks to gather minerals, and use the materials to construct upgrades that will give better weapons to the fighters. Workers have a basic axe they can use in battle if needed, but if they upgrade themselves they can use explosives which is far better.

Battle The Enemy – You can become a warrior, ranger, or wizard and head out to meet the enemy in battle. Each type has a basic attack plus a charged attack and if the workers build their upgrades, all three can switch over to more advanced weapons. The warriors are best in melee attacks, the rangers from a distance with crossbows or muskets, and the wizards do a lot of damage with charged, radius attacks that include fire for damage and ice to slow others down.

Healing – You can also become a priest and head out to cast heal spells in support. If the workers upgrade this class, you can become a dark priest and drain health from the enemies instead.

Currently the beta supports just one map, “Black Forest” (I suspect that all the maps will be named after cakes) and it offers these strategic properties:

Towers – Between the two castles are five towers. If a player stands next to a tower for a given period unchallenged, it falls under that team’s control. Workers can now bring their wood and mineral to these towers instead of walking all the way back to the castle, the central towers can be used by archers and wizards for ranged attacks, the buildings closest to each castle are outhouses and can be used as a secret passage into the middle of the castle.

River Passage – The middle of the map is engulfed by a large river. Players that fall into the water lose their health and eventually drown. To prevent this there’s a thin bridge and a series of small islands that players can hop across.

Mountain Passage – Although there’s plenty of trees near each castle to provide wood, the minerals needed are within rocks at the top of the mountain, right in the middle of the battle. Workers will have to chip away through rock walls just to get to them, but it’s worth it for the upgrades they bring can make a big difference.

Secret Passages – Getting into the other team’s castle is the hard part. If you pound long enough you can eventually break through the main gate, but it’s better to have workers build springboards, ladders, and teeter-totters to help you scale the walls. If they gather enough resources, workers can also build a catapult that can launch players directly inside the other’s castle. If you grab the special potion next to the catapult before you go flying, you can use it to transform enemy players into chickens. Once in, there’s a secret passage you can break open next to the princess’ cell that takes you underground and pops up next to the river. Finally, the outhouses next to your own castle provide the fastest way back inside.

Once you get your princess back inside your own castle and sitting on her throne happily, with the other team’s princess still in the dungeon munching on cake, and you maintian this for a period of time, you win.

From playing the game I find that a full, 32 players produces absolute chaos. There are just too many jobs and it’s too easy for players to switch between them. In find it works best with a small game of about eight to twelve players who know each other and can agree on who’s taken on which duties in advance.

In the current beta there are two modes; Rescue The Princess and Deathmatch, both fairly standard. Not currently available is a story-based mode called “Legend of the Fat Princess” and a mode for practicing fighting moves called “Gladiate”. As you play you’ll unlock new clothing and hairstyles to customize your basic character model.

So far the game offers an interesting dynamic on the basic capture-the-flag gameplay that we’re all used to. What I’m hoping to see from the story mode that we’re not getting from the multiplayer mode is humour. With a title like “Fat Princess” there should be more than just a single gag. Some dramatic straining from the guards as they try to lift the hefty captives or having the characters make a fuss over the smell in the outhouse passage, something to break the repetition of an endless number of little guards hitting each other, over and over.