Strategy games have always been a “take it or leave it” style of game. The PC people always lap these things up and have made them a staple part of the personal computer repertoire for many years, with Command and Conquer and Age of Empires being two of the most remembered in the minds of the mouse wielders. The consoles have tried, with admittedly varying degrees of success, to implement these titles onto the current gen. systems. The one thing that always seems to hold them back is the control method. One controller simply doesn’t have the same amount of intricacy as the keyboard and mouse combo.
Titan Studios and Sony Santa Monica have come along with their own interpretation of RTS, but instead of trying to engulf us with frantic stick movements and mashing of dials there is a much more simplified take on a brain taxing genre. Instead of controlling the whole army and building every single thing from scratch, Fat Princess brings you into the fray with a fair bit of your base (castle in this instance) already up and you simply being in control of you, with everyone else being either manipulated by AI or other humans, but we’ll get to that later.
The story behind the game is a basic one. You are a servant for your beloved king and all things are peaceful and well. Your high exulted one is father to a lovely, sweet angelic little princess who whilst one day walking through the forest comes across a huge slice of cake growing out of the ground (I know I said it was basic, I never said it made any sense though). Obviously cake plus princess equals a rather overweight successor to the throne. To make things interesting, as well as giving you something to do in the game, there are two castles with opposing kingdoms in the same predicament, and with a “handsome” prince coming to wed either one of these dashing brides, the race is on to win his hand by fair means or foul.
There is a definite cel shaded lean to Fat Princess. It looks great in its own comical style, not to mention a fair bit of gore and violence, which for something this cute is quite refreshing. It’s very colourful too, which helps hike the striking visual quality even higher. In terms of comparison to other PSN titles available to download it can certainly hold its own nicely. The music is also suitably cartoon-like and minds its own business in a jolly and unobtrusive way, which is always good. As an audio/video package it can’t help to raise a smile, that’s for sure.
The basic single player mode is exactly that. There are a total of seven chapters, but in reality it’s really six because the last one is just a voiceover finishing the story. It is a VERY short effort and will only take you a maximum of two hours. It has a feeling of being a multi mission tutorial to give you all the different modes of the game and feature the varied locales within Fat Princess, but you still feel cheated with this. There is a definite feeling of a reliance on the multiplayer pulling it all through and making things all worthwhile. A rather silly soccer option and a gladiatorial arena for all the different types of abilities do dent the disappointment of the length, but only marginally.
It’s a bit of a shame really because the control system and the depth shown in these six missions are rather clever. There are five different types of army man you can be. The warrior is the all out brawn of the outfit, rangers have the distant offence taken care of with bows and arrows, as well as healing druids, wizards with mystic powers and woodmen who help to build upgrade units for your castle. The said upgrades allow your fellow soldiers to have their own abilities ramped up to make things a little easier, so it does edge you towards a team effort, with everyone banding together to reach the goal.
The best way to describe the tasks available in Fat Princess is likening them to your standard variants found in most first person shooters these days, but with a different viewpoint. The goals can change from the capture the flag style of the main aim, to team death matches with a “get to zero” lives left counter, as well as something similar to Battlefield 1943’s capturing of outposts. It’s a nice mix up of different genres and it does work, but it’s the sum of all parts that make a game either sink or swim and it’s a game that just doesn’t add up. Let me explain.
Creating a classic game is all about balance. Finding that right amount of online excitement and offline enjoyment is a paramount quality in today’s gaming market. If you can’t get both equally full then normally one side will pick up the slack of the other. Fat Princess seems to be lacking in both sides, which is disappointing. The offline mode is criminally short and is almost bordering on unforgivable; regardless of how many extra downloads they plan. You’re already paying £12 for this, so you expect something longer. The online mode does have the potential to work well, but on checking this out I had some major connection issues, with actions lagging out a lot and this just made the enjoyment slip away in favour of our old nemesis, frustration. If games like Battlefield can have 24 players on an intense and action filled island, how come there is latency on a title that even though it has 32 folk is just not as large, not to mention that the match I joined only had about 10 humans in it, as the rest of the regiment was made up of computer AI.
The other problem is nothing to do with them. Sony’s own online system has always been playing a bit of catch up with Xbox Live, but one of the major things is that with all the 360 machines sold to go online there was a headset to talk to people, which I personally feel helps to create a fun atmosphere (well, most of the time) and if that isn’t there, the game can suffer a bit. This is the case here, as even though there are official communicators available, not everyone has them and it just doesn’t help things any.
As I say, it is a real shame. Fat Princess itself does play well and I’m sure there will be more downloads as time goes on, but when your offline mode is practically non-existent and the online area is bereft of atmosphere and laggy, you find that even the best ideas are doing the equivalent of climbing a greasy pole. It looks quirky, sounds fun and plays well, but the content in other areas is a bit short. It’s in the “wait ‘til it comes down in price” section, as there are other titles out there at the same price that can offer you more for your money. As it stands though, there just isn’t enough there for your hard earned.
VideogameUK verdict: 6.5/10
