Fat Princess is a strategy-based action game with a simplistic cartoon look and a cake-load of charm. It’s a bloody battle of capture the flag that shows the potential of downloadable online games. While not quite Warhawk or Battlefield 1943, the game’s cute design has a charismatic quality that more than makes up for the lack realism. More importantly, beneath the soft aesthetic of Fat Princess is a remarkable team strategy game that creates fantastic situations and frustrations.

In Fat Princess, two teams go to war across a cell-shaded environment in a bid to capture the other team’s princes. In the beginning of the game, the enemy team starts with your princess captured in their base, and you start with their’s. You spawn within the castle of your team and are immediately faced with the question of what you should do. Around the castle are various machines and devices that will aid you in battle. You initially start as a Villager with minor health, quickest pace and the pathetic ability to slap enemy units. You need a hat, sir! The machines dispense hats and picking one up will instantly transform you into a Worker, Warrior, Ranger, Mage or Priest.

The Worker is the backbone of your army. His job is to harvest resources from the game’s map and return these to your base. The basic attack of the Worker is an axe-swipe, which also allows trees to be chopped and metal to be mined. Aiming and holding attack on machines and devices means you can upgrade/build them. Upgrading a hat machine grants a secondary class to that hat. The secondary attack of the Worker is a bomb toss that makes him a deadly threat to most would-be attackers. The Worker can also repair the castle doors which the enemy will attempt to destroy to get away with the princess. Finally a Worker can make siege weapons such as ladders, catapults and springboards to enter the enemy base. Because of all this, the Worker stands as the director of the strategy, upgrading classes, siege weapons, defenses to outwit and out-maneuver the opposition.

Warriors are a brute force best used in numbers to destroy squads of enemies and launch attacks on the enemy base. They have the most health and heaviest attack. Charging an attack can cause more damage and hurt more enemies. The warrior has two weapons, his sword and his lance. The sword is available from start and comes with a shield that will block enemy arrows when aiming allowing you to get up close and personal. The secondary attack uses his lance, which is best used when charged for nasty dashes forward cutting up foes.

The Ranger starts with a bow and upgrades to a musket. Rangers have a large amount of health and are light on their feet, allowing you to scout ahead or pick off enemy soldiers at a distance. Arrows and Muskets can also be charged or set alight when passing a torch.

The Mage, much like the Rangers, is best used for ranged attacks. Mages start by playing with fire and later unlock the ability to freeze enemies, slowing them down to let nearby Warriors to hack them to frozen minced-meat.

The Priest are able to heal friendly units or suck the energy of the enemy. Mastering the Priest can prolong the lives of your army and prevent larger numbers of foes from overpowering you. It requires being able to be light on your feet and accurate with your aiming.

Combination of these characters make for deadly results. Around the map are command-posts that can be used to harvest resources. Objects in the game include massive bombs and magic potions, the latter causes enemies (and friendlies) to turn into chickens, which have pathetic health and damage combo but make for amusing scenes during a blood-thirsty clash of forces.

Feeding the enemy princess makes her fat and harder to retrieve. There’s nothing better than when the opposing team stage a bold attack on your castle, breach your defenses and are then faced with a princess the approximate size of Jabba The Hutt. You can almost taste their frustration as the task ahead sinks in! A princess who has scoffed too many cakes can be carried quicker by more units, this is done by pressing the pick-up button, and still allows you to attack as usual.

This is the gameplay mechanic – spawn, choose character, work to get princess back. It’s a kind of Capture the Flag but with the flags munching cake and getting heavy. Fat Princess rewards behind-the-scenes hard-work as well as fearless bravery. Everything you do gives you points towards your individual score but in the end it comes down to which team has both princesses.

There are eight maps that range from forests to to tropical beaches to lava-spewing volcanoes. Each map has it’s own resources, short-cuts and dangers. Although Rescue the Princess is the primary game mode, there are four other modes that provide a welcome change: Snatch N’ Grab, Team Deathmatch, Invasion and Soccer. Soccer is the strangest of these and takes place on a soccer field where the two teams try to get balls in to their net. But unlike the real sport, violence is actually encouraged to the point where the pitch is soaked crimson.

The style and overall approach of the game blends comical violence with sandbox strategy. Blood-splattered war-zones are welcome in a world that is so cheerful that even your Granny would like it. Despite the blood and gore, the look of the game will probably put-off quite a few young males who won’t be able to get past the soft exterior to see the true beauty of the game.

The menus features options such as “Play With Yourself” and “Twiddly Knobs” that reinforce the humor that’s at the very heart of Fat Princess’ charm. From the menu you can see extensive stats under “Bragging Rights” (Ahem, 16 pages…) or customize your little dude in “Get Fabulous”. You unlock new ways to “Get Fabulous” over time, allowing you to modify your look to have that pink mullet and chin-strap you’ve always wanted.

The single-player campaign is “Legend of the Fat Princess” – a story-mode that teaches you the basics of the game and the backdrop for why you need your princess back. Also included is “Mess About” where you can choose a map to play on against the computer and “Gladiate” – a training mode to hone your skills.

When playing alone, the first cracks in this beautiful game become apparent. Trying to organize AI characters into helping you is tough-work. The AI for your team-mates is horrid at best. You sit in your base and ask a Priest and a Mage for assistance by pressing UP on the D-Pad and they ignore you. They might follow you around like a bad smell a few seconds later but they scatter when you really need them (probably in a pub having a theological discussion) and this gets frustrating. You can only storm a base by yourself so many times before you get angry at the futility of playing with the computer. Your tactics and overall strategy can fall on it’s face because the game’s AI doesn’t care for your strategy.

Online is where most of the fun is to be discovered, playing on maps with friends and strangers in a battle that can be won with team-work and determination. Pressing R2 allows you to communicate with team-mates, meaning you no longer have to rely on dodgy AI and can plan devastating attacks or clever diversions with real people.

This brings us to our second disappointment of Fat Princess. There is no split-screen. For a game that stresses the importance of the team-dynamic, it’s a pity split-screen is missing. Fewer games support the feature these days and it’s a real shame. With it Fat Princess could have been perfect. A two vs two game would have provided a welcome break from Call Of Duty or Pro Evo when you have friends over. Instead, the game can only shine when you’re alone with your Internet connection.

The low price of the game and menu tab “Fat Downloads” suggest that more content will come in the future, such as new maps and game modes. One can only hope that this will include trophy updates for the game’s skimpy 21 bronze trophies. Fat Princess also lacks the option of custom soundtrack, which is something developers really need to consider if they want to encourage people to continue playing games long after the novelty has worn off. Hacking apart a Mii-like dude would be better whilst listening to Judas Priest!

Fat Princess is an excellent example of quality amongst downloadable titles on PSN. A few minor flaws can’t hide the fact that it’s a game that will be celebrated and enjoyed for quite some time. The lastibility of this game will depend on your preference for simple-looking strategy-action games, but for most, feeding cake to your prisoner so she expands to the size of a blimp will be addictive and will leave you coming back for more.

Strengths:

• Unique charm
• Great take on classic game mode
• Range of options, customizations and character classes

Weaknesses:

• Lack of split-screen
• Crazy AI
• Trophy Diet

Score: 88 (Two Fat Princesses)