Aside from its copious gore and fairytale setting, one feature of the upcoming Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network platform title Fairytale Fights sticks out like a bloody thumb: The “Kill 1,000 Children” achievement.
As its name would suggest, the game rewards players with proof of the achievement after they have slaughtered, disemboweled or otherwise made extinct 1,000 of the game’s youthful inhabitants.
Though the grotesque achievement seems fitting when viewed through a lens familiar with the rampant bloodshed and violence present in the fables the game uses as source material, it should prove instantly popular with anti-gaming pundits eager to fire another salvo at our pixelated pastime.
As a result, even developer PlayLogic is debating the wisdom of including the achievement in the final version of the game. A more cynical commentator could even argue that they only included the achievement in early builds to drum up the sort of controversy (read: the post you’re reading at this very moment) that guarantees solid sales, if only to gamers curious to witness exactly what all the fuss was about.
Even so, if this proves to be nothing more than a clever guerrilla marketing campaign, we at least have an amusing anecdote from producer Poria Torkan who spoke to UGO about how the notoriously stringent German ratings board reacted to the game.
We’ve actually shown it to the Germans in advance. They thought it was very funny.
It’s like Torkan is daring you to make a horrible joke.
