Crimson Alliance Preview

The Escapist is the latest to offer a hands-on preview for Certain Affinity’s XBLA hack’n’slash Crimson Alliance, and they seem to come away pleased with the title and its flexible pricing.

What caught my attention came near the end where I asked if there was anything else I should know about the game, already having learned that the story was sort of unexplainable to the exhibitor (“So bad stuff happened and you’ve got to go stop it, right?” “Yes, actually that’s about right. This isn’t you’re first rodeo, is it?” “No it is not.”). No, what really sparked my eyes to flutter a bit was the mention that while the game would cost 1200 MS points (US$15 in real world money), you have the choice of purchasing it with just a single class unlocked at a reduced price of 800 MS points.

This is the aspect Certain Affinity is really pushing, and from the sounds of things, is most worried about. As soon as it was mentioned, I got excited and said that I thought it was a great idea. Their reasoning for the idea was that some players tend to favor one class over the others and so if they were only going to play as one of the three classes, why not just sell them a game without the unnecessary classes at a cheaper cost? There’s the option to upgrade to the full three classes at any time for just paying the difference with no achievements or save data getting lost in the process. Plus, online co-op doesn’t limit you from joining players who’ve already bought the full package.

Brilliant. Just simply brilliant. The game is fun but it sold me on its sales approach. To my knowledge I can’t think of another model like this. Gamers have cried for an a la cart method of paying and this sounds like just the sort of step in the right direction we’ve wanted. And with a simple pick-up-and-play style of gameplay that we have here, you’ll find yourself quickly addicted and deciding to upgrade to play as the other two classes you keep seeing online.