I mentioned I’d been enjoying the Xbox Live Arcade game Castle Crashers in an earlier post. It’s an old-school scrolling beat-em-up in the tradition of the Konami-era arcade classics like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, X-Men and The Simpsons. If you own an Xbox and have a Live account, you can download the game for about $15 USD.

The game was created by the tiny design studio The Behemoth, whose first game was Alien Hominid, a retro run-and-gun (think the original Contra for NES) that became a runaway hit on multiple platforms. I found AH to be a little too difficult to be fun (my thumbs ached at the end of every play session), but Castle Crashers hits just the right balance between being challenging and a blast to play.

The plot, like that of the aforementioned arcade games, is very simple: the king’s daughters have been kidnapped by a motley crew of ne’er-do-wells and it’s your job, as one of the king’s premier knights, to save them. (As far as I know, none of the characters are given names.) This primarily involves slaughtering your way through hundreds of bad guys. In the course of the game, your little knight will encounter barbarians, thieves, humanoid bears, blobs, and even aliens before finally getting a crack at the Big Boss.

Each knight also has a particular magical specialty–fire, ice, lightning, and poison–that can be increased over the game with experience points. Which abilities you build up (strength, magic, agility, defense) are up to you.

The game is filled with humorous touches, from references to movies like Terminator 2 to a peculiar abundance of scatological jokes (seriously, this game has more poop per level than any game I’ve ever played). Along with the usual swords and shields, you can pick up weapons ranging from twigs to sticks to fish to a giant golden key. All of these weapons are stored in a gigantic frog. Yes, you read that right.

You can also choose from a number of helper animals who follow along behind you, giving you a boost in some key aspect of the game. My favorites are the Beholder and the “Install Ball,” a bouncing eyeball that fires photon blasts.

I ordered my Blue Knight off The Behemoth’s Web store, although the figures seem to come and go in stock (I saw them going for more than $60 on eBay just days before they popped up in stock again on the CC web store, so you should contact the store before bidding on them online). They sell for $20 apiece, and if you order all four you get the fourth one free.

I went with the Blue Knight because, well, blue is my favorite color. The figure arrives in a plain brown box. Inside is a clear plastic display case, inside which is the figure, the display stand and the weapons.

The Blue Knight (every time I write that word, I hear a French-accented “kih-nig-it” in my head–thanks, John Cleese) stands a little over two inches tall. When you first open him, he looks like he might be a solid PVC piece, but he has swivel joints at the neck, shoulders, wrists, and waist.

What he lacks in articulation, the Blue Knight makes up for in accessories. Each knight comes with a matching shield and four weapons: a mace, a sword, an axe, and a fish (the deadliest weapon known to man). The weapons can be placed in the round display base, which also has a peg for the Knight’s foot.

I do wish the figure had come with a helper animal or two, given the price point. A little ram or, even better, the Behemoth chicken would have great.

The paint apps on the figure and accessories are simple. The blue has the right cartoon-like shade, and having weapons with actual paint applications for once is nice. The “blood” on the sword and axe is a little spotty, but I didn’t mind that much. The only thing that bothers me is that the white portions of the figure tend to pick up dust and dirt easily.

Then there’s also the big window display box, though I’m not sure it was designed specifically for the Knight. There’s no place to secure the round display base inside, so it will rattle around if picked up.

As a collectible based on a great game, the Blue Knight is cool. But as a $20 toy (nearly $30 with shipping), he’s overpriced. If you buy the set of four for $60, it gets a little better at $15 apiece, but the price tag definitely takes this out of the “toy” range and puts it into “high-priced collectible” territory. I can recommend these to fans of the game and those with a deplorable excess of disposable income, but to the casual toy collector it’s definitely a bit too expensive.