Castle Crashers

The second game from Newgrounds developers Tom Fulp and Dan Paladin (also known collectively as "The Behemoth"), is an excellent addition to Xbox Live Arcade. Set in the medieval days of noble knights and monstrous beasts, this scrolling brawler is full of character and nods to the developer's mad-cap brand of humour.

An evil sorcerer has ransacked the castle and stolen a massive crystal along with four princesses and it's up to you to recover the artefact and fair maidens or die trying. Choose from one of four knights and get ready to travel to the four corners of the kingdom, from grim mechanical strongholds to frozen wastelands and even an alien mothership.

Each of the twee, but hard-as-nails knights has different combos and magic attacks including poison, fire and ice spells. You start out relatively weak and the difficulty might throw you a bit, but before long you will be levelling up your character's stats and figuring out the enemy's fighting styles.

Battles are great fun as you tear across each level, opening up a chalice of pain on a host of zany characters including trout-weilding cats, giant worms and sucker-punching bees. Boss battles are particularly awesome and are something of a speciality for the developer. You'll never look at vegetables the same way again after battling a giant popcorn-spewing corn cob. These are pretty tough fights, but after a few attempts, you will suss out when to strike and when to block or dodge attacks.

Special mention must go to the art direction as it is evident a lot of hard work has gone into building the colourful and imaginative world. Another neat bit of design are the animal companions you can enlist to help you in battle. These critters are dotted around the many game worlds and each one has a different skill. For example, the bat will chomp on foes and the fox will sniff out buried treasure. This is a simple inclusion that makes the game a little bit more in-depth.

To add to the role-playing slant of the game, there is also an in-game currency. Bash treasure chests or defeat enemies to collect coins and jewels which can be spent in the several stores. Here you can buy health potions, bombs and sandwiches, which turn you into a giant version of yourself.

There are online duel and co-op modes, but crippling lag removes most of the fun, rendering them almost unplayable. Instead, try playing locally with up to three of your mates.

With tons of hidden characters, animal buddies and weapons to unlock, it's going to take ages to see everything this game has to offer. Taking into account the ace local multiplayer modes, this is more than worth the money.