Costume Quest – first look makes us go "squee!"

Real talk: Costume Quest looks AWESOME (caps are appropriate here because I actually yelled "awesome" while typing). It's a celebration of a childhood Halloween tradition that many of us hold dear to our hearts, but with a delightful fantastical spin. For starters, the young hero's homemade cardboard robot costume can transform for into a rocket-wielding giant mech if he gets pissed off enough. Ultra articulated!

Above: Pretty coolrobot costume

Above: HENSHIN!

Above:Trembleatthe raw power

Our story begins with twins, a boy and a girl, about to embark on a night of unsupervised trick-or-treating. Their mother must select a leader, and whoever she (read: you) picks gets to be the main character and gains the right to lord over his/her sibling obnoxiously. Things turn sour quickly though, as your other half is kidnapped by a monster who mistakes her (or him!) for a giant piece of candy corn.

If your parents find out you let your twin be kidnapped, you'd totally get grounded, and that simply won't do. So off you go around the neighborhood, navigating streets full of dangers like monsters, witches, and (possibly scariest of all) bullies. As you look for your sibling you'll find power-ups like roller skates that help you access new areas of the map, and we're told that multiple costumes will be available as you progress through the game.

We could go on and gush about the rest of the demo, but we actually have a full video walkthrough of the first portion of the game (which, by the way, will be for XBLA and PSN download), complete with devastatingly witty commentary from Tim Schafer and costume quest project lead Tasha Harris, that we're going to post early next week. Honestly, we're unreservedly excited about Costume Quest, in that rare way that makes all our jaded "preview goggles" cynicism fly by the wayside, so stay tuned!

Aug 26, 2010