Fat Princess shadows over PlayStation 3

Carry the princess back to your castle to save the day in this frantic medieval puzzler. Only one problem: she's been eating far too many cakes!

While the rest of the gaming world is encouraging health and activity, this upcoming download game for PlayStation 3 pokes friendly fun at being fat. We rather suspect that Fat Princess has been so-named to court a little bit of PS3 controversy. Perhaps the food fight will erupt when the game has launched, sometime this spring? Meanwhile we've been having our fill of the public play test version, alongside a very select group of PlayStation 3 fans who were asked to submit photos of them eating cake via Facebook in order to qualify for early access to the game:

"The first 250 people to upload a picture of themselves eating cake (cheesecake, cupcakes and fruitcakes are all acceptable) to our Facebook fan page will get in."

Brilliant! Apparently all the places are now FULL.

Anyway, to the game: Fat Princess is a very jolly affair and not, as it turns out, entirely centred on the Princess - who isn't always fat but we'll get to that. Basically this a fast-paced real-time-strategy (RTS) game in which two teams comprising up to 32 loyal subjects compete to overthrow each other. As with most RTS games you achieve victory by outnumbering your enemy or capturing their outposts. But in the case of Fat Princess, success is also achieved by rescuing your royal highness held in the rival castle dungeon. Part of the fun is finding your way into the rival castle, because rushing the gates doesn't work - you'll need to be more inventive. Building ladders to breach the walls or finding secret tunnels are a couple of the ways we've managed so far. Once inside you're on a rescue mission to find Her.

Okay let's meander toward the Fat Princess part now. The basic game mechanics allow players to change role literally at the drop of a hat. If you pick up a warrior's helmet you become a warrior armed with sword and shield. Collect a hunter's cap and you'll be granted a bow and arrow. Workers carry an axe, priests a healing rod, and all that sort of thing. But also littering the battlefield are large slices of cake, and it makes strategic sense to keep tossing these into the mouth of your captive princess to make her too heavy to easily carry back home. A slim princess is easily transported by one valiant rescuer. A fat princess requires a whole team!

There's more to it than just that, searching for resources that include wood and stone to bolster your castle defences and improve the skill levels of your minions. Fundamentally though - whether playing online with friends or solo with AI assistants - this is what Fat Princess is all about. And we like it.

Weirdly though there is a lot of blood spilled on the battlefield. Unnecessary given the playful premise of the game on the whole. On the one hand there are dessert theme levels called such things as Black Forest and Coco Cliffs, and cute characters. Then you have lots of gore. Doesn't really add up, but Sony wants feedback so that's ours.

Have you been playing the Fat Princess Public Beta? Or have you been watching the movies online? What's your opinion Fat Princess? Is Sony biting off more than it can chew, etc? Okay, no more food puns. Floor's yours.