Charlie Murder (XBLA Title)

[XGC Forsakend]

So charlie murder released today and appears to be similar to Castle Crashers. It is developed by a favorite indie studio of mine and creator of the Dishwasher Samurai series and "I Made a Game With Zombies in it", SKA Studios (Two man crew whom are Husband and Wife).

Charlie Murder is a 4 player side scrolling beat em up similar to castle crashers, but this time you are punk rock stars. There is RPG elements in place such as a level up system and exp that require the use of your in-game characters windows phone and twitter accounts (Twitter followers = EXP Points) as well as equipment (Jackets, Hats, Shirts with varying stats).

There is also bonus stages (maybe? Been watching Microsoft Studios XBLA play on twitch for a bit) that are QTE resembling rockband with the 4 buttons (X, B, A, Y) that have your characters bust out from playing air guitar and singing in the living room to performing on stage to a crowd of fans (depending how well you play I imagine).

Regardless, I am sold on the game and will probably pick it up at some point this week and give a much more informative post on it than stuff based on 1 lets play video and 20 minutes of watching twitch.

Simply wanted to let you guys know about it so you can all check it out

Trailer Link:
http://youtu.be/ZwFC_FoTpDA

 

[XGC Forsakend]

Got some more play time with this last night after picking it up, it is a great beat-em up game.
I only put in about 2.5 hrs of play-time, but I believe I played enough to get the gist of it.

The game is 4 players (Locally and Online) and there are 5 characters available with different skills/abilities (Bezerker, Mage, Shaman, Tank, Mesmer). I played as the mesmer and my younger brother picked up the tank class.

There are clothes you can pick up such as hats, shirts, emblems (rings) that give different stat points to your own stats (Strength, Speed, Defense, Anar-chi and one more I believe...) which also double as customizations for your characters looks. These clothes could also be dyed a certain color if you either loot or buy the dyes in the in-game store with money the enemies drop.

Apart from your class special attack, there is also ways to get more special attacks available for your class via tattoos. Each class has their own tattoos available which draw out your 'Anar-chi' out to dish out damage to your enemies.

The level up system uses the Windows phone, by hitting left on the D-pad. You open up with a choice of a new skill ability (every few levels) which differ between classes and then adding stat points to your main attributes.

The phone also allows you to check out Squiggly.us (fake in-game twitter) as a method to see your experience gained. Each follower you have is 1 experience point. The posts by your fans sometimes have comments such as "Can't wait to see you next week. Be going to your concert!" or "Love your music man!" which makes it more believably but still obviously fake.

Down D-pad activates a camera which can be used to capture a shot of in-game QR codes to unlock new hats or shirts and right d-pad is the help/tip section via Trollmail (e-mail).

There is also the ability to do co-op style attacks with each other by unlocking the ability with a skill point and then acquiring a 20x Combo. This allows you to perform the Co-op skill (which differs between classes I believe, activated by hitting both LR + RT) and requires a team mate to also hit both triggers. One player controls the movement and the other unleashes a furry of attacks to nearby enemies.

The game also has a crafting beer system that gives you stat boosts for a short time, but I don't know much about it. I had trouble getting it to work the first time and got some beers the 2nd attempt but they seem un-rewarding.

This game should definitely be checked out by anyone whom likes beat em ups, try the trial version out!

Here is a 1 Minute Review by ProJared, covers everything plus more.
One Minute Review - Charlie Murder - YouTube