Game Review: Battleblock Theater

Good evening boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen. Turn the lights down low and shut your faces as I wrap you in the cosy blanket of a story. A story as heart-warming and soft as a mother’s kiss, or is it?

From Behemoth studios, the team that brought you Castle Crashers and Alien Hominid comes a new Xbox Live Arcade title: Battleblock Theater. Anyone who has played either of the previous two games (and if you haven’t then, seriously, where have you been?!) will undoubtedly be very excited to learn of this new release. Whilst both previous games were very different to each other, they were also both very popular (Castle Crashers was, until recently, the most downloaded XBLA title of all time) and very well made so previous players will have had high expectations for this new title. Battleblock Theater is a puzzle-platformer which presents a familiar concept. Collect things, in this case gems, and they’ll unlock the exit. Collect more gems and complete the level in a better time and you’ll get a better grade for the level.

Your story in Battleblock Theater begins as you set sail with a group of friends on a ship (The S.S. friend-ship). Amongst these friends is Hatty Hattington, your best friend (and best friend to one and all) All is going well in the voyage until suddenly you are hit by a storm! Unfortunately this leads you and your fellow friends to be shipwrecked on an island, which is also a theater for some reason. Hatty is kidnapped by some evil cats who force him to run the theater in which you and your fellow friends/prisoners/performers are forced to participate. Your mission is to complete every scene and rescue the aforementioned handsome gentleman, Hatty Hattington.

The art style of Battleblock Theater will be instantly recognisable to those who have played Behemoth’s previous games. Cartoon effects and customisable characters with colourful yet simple backgrounds make Battleblock Theater’s visuals fitting for the type of game it is. There is an ongoing quest to free all of your friends from the captivity of the cats which you do so with gems, collected from each scene. Once freed, these prisoners become playable characters and collecting each character quickly becomes addictive. The soundtrack to the game is fun and bouncy and just really fits in very well with the atmosphere the game creates. The dialogue is also hilarious. The narrator constantly heckles you through every death with words of wisdom such as “Oh, that was the easy part” or “You died there?”  And on top of that the story itself is enough to keep you completing level after level, hoping to get to the next side-splitting cut-scene.

The gameplay itself is simple and challenging at the same time. The controls are easy to learn and the earlier levels ease you into the game quite fairly. As the game progresses the skill required to complete each level increases to the point where it becomes quite difficult in the final stages. Collecting each gem and ball of yarn (Yay! Yarn!) becomes more challenging by each level and the A++ grades that came easy with the earlier stages quickly become quite elusive. It is in the co-operative game-play that the game becomes most enjoyable, with teamwork essential to complete some levels and betrayal a constant temptation, Battleblock theater has all the ingredients to make an addictive co-op experience. The game is reminiscent of the Portal series, particularly in the co-op modes with the puzzler aspect which makes you work together and with the humour sprinkled throughout. The story mode doesn’t have any moments which are beyond completion, so long as you have the perseverance needed, and the game doesn’t glitch at any point. Obviously this is what you’d expect from a game but recently it seems that some developers have forgotten about this (I’m looking at you SEGA) so it’s worth a mention

It’s important to mention the online aspect of the game. The great thing here is that Battleblock Theater comes with a level editor, where users can create their own scenes and build them into a playlist for others to play online. This creates an endless supply of puzzles to complete, so if you think you’ve come to the end of the game finishing the story mode then think again! They’ve also included a rating system for these levels and playlists so when you do find one that might be a little glitchy (and with user created levels you’d expect nothing less) then you can warn other players by leaving a bad rating for the playlist. This also means that you’ll have a good idea of what a playlist is like before even giving it a go. There’s a wide selection of multiplayer modes including death-match, basketball, king of the hill and capture the flag (or pig in this case) and users can also create levels for these modes to be played by the community.

The Verdict

Battleblock Theater is a puzzle platformer that’s easy to learn and fun to master. Simple in its concept the game is surprisingly addictive, hilarious and endlessly entertaining. For 1200 Microsoft Points you won’t regret a single second of gameplay. Now stop reading this review and go download it and, in the immortal words of Hatty Hattington: “Hold on to your butts!”

Rating 9/10