So I know it seems a bit just like a contradiction unless you are a totally twisted. War should not be happy times. Inside the gaming world though it can be very true if you find yourself having fun on a silly playing game that is also free. Yep I wonder how many people ceased reading and started downloading with that last statement because Happy Wars takes the big RPG mechanics of a PC and makes them some simple fun on XBLA.
When two tribes go to war… well in this instance it’s two kingdoms and they battle daily over such things as what is more robust a hippo or an elephant, favorite games, the weather, politics, you know the usual things everyday arguments result in that generally don’t turn into war lol. Oh yea and a little princess gets kidnapped at one point just in case I forgot to mention that, which in turn really is a excellent and ancient reason for war. There actually is a storyline on the single player campaign though I imagine a lot of folks will dedicate themselves to multiplayer because it is an absolute blast.
I pointed out they fight over hippos versus elephants right? Well the visuals and sound are as goofy as the reasons they fight. Enormous heads on little bodies all with cartoony features and silly atmospheres combine with wacky noises and Saturday morning music to make this a game that visually doesn’t take itself seriously and aspires for fun instead of realism.
Items such as armor, weapons and charms, can be acquired numerous ways: earned in combat, won by gambling in game credits or bought with real world dollars. Commonly this bothers me pretty bad since it means the game is free to play but fork out to win. However this game struck a decent enough balance that yes you could pay and level fast and be tougher but if you don’t it is still fun. Also it has a single player campaign as well as multiplayer so you can play against a very good AI if you choose to and that AI won’t be running around with purchased weapons. To have a free game that has single player campaigns is kind of unheard of these days so making a couple small purchases doesn’t feel as bad since you are supporting a full gaming experience. There are levels of purchases, some of the weapons, armor and charms can be pretty pricey in the real world so it all depends on how much you want to invest.
This is a really fun game in which kept turning into “one more battle and then I’ll go to bed”. The servers are a little different in setup, expect to be disconnected a good deal during the matching up section because I think it balances the teams then boots the extras. I play a lot of free to play games but they are almost exclusively on the PC so to have a F2P on the console that it sucked me in as much as this one did was a very pleasant big surprise. I also really appreciate the single player campaign being on the game too, if it is free it usually only has one or the other, not both multiplayer and single player. Or one will suffer to a great extent for the inclusion of the other, too much of a stretch of resources. I enjoyed this game a lot both in single player and multiplayer and highly recommend it. What do you have to lose except a bit of hard drive space on your XBox 360? Don't forget to add me if you decide to play. Send me a private message.