Ginger, on Costume Quest

If you don't know about this game, shame on you and move out from that rock you've been living under. But seriously, this game is amazing. Developed by Double Fine Productions and released October 20th 2010, Costume Quest is a Halloween themed adventure role-playing video game. While that might sound dumb as a box of rocks and just about as fun, they did a really good job. This game is a blast. The main character, who you play, is a child who's trick-or-treating with their twin on Halloween when they encounter a monster that kidnaps your sibling. Afterward you travel around the local neighborhood collecting candy, costume materials and other children as companions in order to face the bad guy and save your sibling. All before curfew.

The really cool thing about this game is the costumes: the costumes are used in battle segments, where the player character and companions are transformed into the monsters and creatures they are dressed as to fight other monsters. (You get to watch a cool little action movie for the creature you're dressed as at the start of each fight, so you might want to switch it up a bit to see all of them.) Each costume also has a special ability used in fights or for exploration, or if you're really lucky, both. The costume you start with for example, The Robot, has these wheelie shoes that boost your speed way up for ramps and stuff as well as a special missile attack for battles. I really dig the transformation part for battles - it's just like pure kid imagination run wild, like this is what the kid was thinking when they made that costume and this is what they feel like waring it. I remember feeling like that when I was a kid, so it's nice to see other people remember what it felt like too.

Seriously dude, you're giving us a bad rep.

There are three different worlds (stages?) for you to complete are really well developed and planned. The art for the game is really well done too. A little on the cuteys side, but I actually like that. I'm not a fan of super scary things, like large spiders or elementary schools. Since there are no voiced parts, there is a lot of reading in some sections of the game - but it's cool 'cause that kind of gives it that old school RPG feeling.

As far as replay ability, I think it's something you'd only play a few times a year. But if you're like me and you love Halloween, it's still pretty cool other times of the year too. If you have younger kids, I think this would be an awesome game for you to bond over too - especially if you like video games more than they do. I think the subject matter would be more accessible for them than a classic style RPG, and it's a lot less complicated. It's also challenging enough for you not to get bored helping them but easy enough for them not to get super frustrated a want to quit either.

The secret cave is totally secret. Totally. (From expansion.)

Currently, it's available for download on the XBox 360 (the verison I played) and Playstation 3. The is an additional down loadable chapter, "Grubbins on Ice", that was made available in December 2010 alongside a free patch to correct some of the game's performance and gameplay problems (I didn't have any so I'm not sure what the patch fixes). Taking place some time after the events of the main game while winter falls upon the kids, they find a portal to the monster's world, Repugia, where Lucy (a companion from the first game) is captured by the monsters during a revolution. The other three kids don their costumes to help save Lucy. While many of the core game's features carry over into the add-on, new costumes and abilities are available in the expansion. (Yay!) And the expansion is just as fun as the original.