Foul Play is out now; here’s our Foul Play review.
Putting on a damn good show should be at the forefront of any performers mind. It’s not often asked of us gamers, though. Foul Play has you recreate the adventures of Baron Dashforth and his sidekick Scampwick for the approval of an audience. It’s not just about clearing the stage of enemies but doing it in style.
Simple kills get you sighs of disappointment from your spectators. Smack a werewolf in the face with a mallet and you might get a dame to shout “Splendid”.
The theatre setting looks to give developer Mastertronic lots of nifty ideas to play with. Actors swarm the stage in cheap costumes to look like the multitude of monsters Dashforth fought in his original adventures. I like the stagehands wearing werewolf heads in particular. Level and location changes take place in front of you as the sets are pulled offstage and replaced.
Foul Play takes a fair bit of inspiration from Castle Crashers. It, too, was a side scrolling brawler with local and online co-op. It also had an irreverent approach to its historical and fantasy setting. If Foul Play approaches the sheer fun that smacking tiny goblins in Castle Crashers evoked then we could be in for a treat.
Foul Play is due out 18 September.