The point is that I suck at Fat Princes.

I downloaded the demo from the Playstation Network, very excited to finally try my hand at the game.

I selected the “play with yourself” option since I am new to this whole cake filled wonderment and didn’t want to embarrass myself. Also, I have a sneaking suspicion that multiplayer is disabled if you’re just playing the demo. Like I said, I didn’t select that option so I don’t know for sure.

Boys are notorious for not reading the instructions and I guess I’m a guy since I didn’t read how to play the game – I just drove right in.

After one minute of watching the different characters run around my screen – each with an obvious mission that I was oblivious of – I was regretting my choice.

I ran around the screen for a good five minutes trying to figure out what my goal was and how to pick up stuff [what's with the controls?!] and since the game is called Fat Princess, I decided to go find said princess. And find her I did but she was a rather skinny princess and didn’t quite live up to the game’s title…until I spied a lonely piece of cake right outside my castle’s walls.

As I dashed through the gates, I was met by this blue bastard who attacked me and sent me back to where I started. What. The. Hell.

After some quick internet research, I realized that the princess in my castle wasn’t actually my princess but the other team’s and that I needed to keep their princess pleasantly plump so that she would be good and heavy and they would have a harder time stealing her back.

So I fed her. And I fed her. And I fed her.

And each time I came back with more cake, she was less fat than when I left her and every time I ventured out for more cake, I got killed.

My error was that Fat Princess is a team game.

Everyone has a role to play and you can’t do it all on your own. I don’t play well with others so team games aren’t my strong suit.

What’s funny is that I must be a glutton for punishment since I plan on buying Fat Princess.

There was just something about the way that the game is designed and the deceptively simple premise that endears it to me and makes me want to feed that damn princess.

Find IGN’s review of Fat Princess below.

Image|Sony

Post from: EveryJoe

I Suck at Fat Princess

Well, it’s Monday, and the PlayStation news has slowed to a trickle. Today we have some great news for Resistance fans, and some bad news for Final Fantasy fans, as well as what could be an actually interesting new Home space. Here are the headlines:

• Resistance: Retribution finally has a release date, and the PSP title will be hitting store shelves on March 17.
• If you were curious as to what the new EA Sports Complex in Home will look like, check out this guided tour.
• It looks like those of us in North America won’t be getting a demo of Final Fantasy XIII.
• Final Fantasy Dissidia has topped the Japanese sales charts, moving an estimated 104,000 units.
• Fat Princess may very well be the next big PSN game. And if you don’t believe me, just check out these videos.
• And then there’s this.

Post from: EveryJoe

Today in PlayStation: January 12, 2009

Holly from “Feministe” made a post about Titan Studios’ upcoming Fat Princess titled, Well, That Was Bound To Happen.

Exactly what was “bound to happen” depends on your outlook on the premise of Fat Princess. Holly is referring to Fat Princess being the catalyst for a flood of fat-hating games now that Titan has made it permissible. Counter-bloggers refer to Fat Princess as the game that was bound to piss of someone, somewhere.

As for me, I’m just confused. And kind of hungry.

I think I have a problem. I’m too laid back. I don’t get outraged enough. I know firsthand that being a female is rough. I know society holds me to a certain standard even though I was not born with the kind of body that will ever be willow-thin.

(Diet and exercise grant me a healthy weight, but I will never be thin.)

And I do get outraged, sometimes. I get mad when married thirty-something women are rejected for job positions because the male interviewer fears she’s going to take off on maternity leave. I get angry at the fact women are overlooked so often for positions of power. Hillary Clinton has the personality of a child-eating robot and it didn’t help her campaign, but you can be absolutely certain that she wouldn’t have garnered the vote of those who believe that “Women cannot make rational decisions.” If it had come down to a vote between Hillary and a male monkey gone mad with advanced syphilis, there are people out there who would have voted for the monkey.

But I laughed at the outlandish idea behind Fat Princess, and apparently I am a traitor to my gender for doing so. I never once thought that it was a hateful idea, or that it was insulting to those of larger girth. I thought it was original. I thought it was a funny change from the usual Capture the Flag formula.

From Shakesville:

“[T]he only thing I can’t figure out is why anyone would want to rescue a fat princess in the first place, since everyone knows that fat girls are unlovable human garbage at whom any sensible bloke would sooner hurl invective than cast a longing glance.”

But…but there’s really no indication that everyone thinks that. Girls far bigger than me have scored great husbands and boyfriends who are supportive and treat them well. Despite the media push and the fact that some people can in fact be very cruel towards large women, I know plenty of men who find girth sexy and resent the thin stereotype as much as females do.

It seems to me that throwing a temper-tantrum right off the bat is the wrong way to go about this kind of thing. “Oh the game lets you laugh at fat people, but you wanted to do that anyway, right? Because you really hate fat people.” It’s repelling, like Charlie Brown constantly beating himself up and admitting nobody would ever want to be friends with a loser like himself.

Maybe I’ve just been spending too much energy getting outraged at ridiculous boob sizes in games. I need to re-focus.

(Image copyright Titan Studios)

Post from: EveryJoe

No Fat Chicks: Fat Princess Makes Feminists Mad

I don’t care how delicious that strawberry shortcake looks! Can’t you see you’re falling into the enemy’s hands?!

The beauty thing about video games is that developers can go nuts with plot points and mechanics that no movie director, regardless of country of origin, would have the balls to attempt.

(Not counting pornography because some of that shit is just wow.)

Kotaku is gearing up to give PSN title Fat Princess Game of the Show for E3 2008. Reading the summary for the title, it’s hard to disagree:

“Frantic and fun, Fat Princess pits two hordes of players against each other in comic medieval battle royale. Your goal is to rescue your beloved princess from the enemy dungeon. There’s a catch though: your adversary has been stuffing her with food to fatten her up and it’s going to take most of your army working together to carry her back across the battlefield.”

Capturing a flag is for jerks. Now it’s all about retrieving members of royalty who have been stuffed like foie gras gooses. Phase II: moulding a delicious pate’.

(Image copyright Sony)

Post from: EveryJoe

No, Fat Princess! Stop Eating!