Game Title DeathSpank
Developer Hothead Games
Publisher Electronic Arts
Platforms PS3 • XBOX 360
Genre/Category Action/Adventure • Fantasy Role Playing
ESRB Rating Teen
Release Date July 14, 2010
Link http://www.deathspank.com
Charming. Intelligent. Enigmatic. These are just a few words you won’t be using to describe DeathSpank. He doesn’t stab first and ask questions later. He doesn’t realize there are questions. Created by Ron Gilbert, the legendary mind behind Monkey Island, DeathSpank is the rarest of the rare: an honestly funny, fun video game.
Described by top scientists (and most reviewers, some of them scientists) as Monkey Island meets Diablo, DeathSpank is an exciting hack and slash action RPG set on a massive, dangerous, curvy world. In between hacking and slashing, DeathSpank solves puzzles and explores an epic story. DeathSpank will vanquish evil and be a hero to the downtrodden; he will collect loot, level up, collect loot, acquire new abilities and collect loot.
If you happen to have misplaced the mightiest hero known to man – look no further! DeathSpank is here!
Taller than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a pack of orphans! Able to leap on locomotives in a single bound! His mission is to right the wrongs of the world, and do so in groovy, thong-tastic style.
DeathSpank, the latest creation of Monkey-Island-Mastermind Ron Gilbert, tosses you head-first into a bizarre fantasy world occupied by just as many gags as greems (icky, horrid things you kill). You’ll find yourself hacking ‘n slashing, grabbing all the loot you can carry, and robbing evil creatures everywhere blind. You’re a hero, what else would you do?
DeathSpank’s purpose in life is to keep his arch-nemesis Lord Von Prong from getting his grubby little fingers on the most awe-inspiring instrument of power known to man; the artifact known as “The Artifact.” And while our intrepid hero does manage to secure his long sought-after prize at the very beginning of the game, he’s soon robbed by a couple Orques, has his sword broken, and loses it like a chump.
Woe is the way of the warrior, dear readers. Woe, indeed.
So it’s off with fresh vigor, a clean set of clothes, and a renewed purpose that DeathSpank sets out to tackle the obstacles before him. He must get The Artifact. He must rescue a ridiculous number of orphans. And he must do it while looking good.
DeathSpank is a game with a lot to offer, especially in terms of combat. Oftentimes, action-rpg’s like this can turn into a grinding click-fest, and since this one’s on the console, there was equal danger of it turning into a button-fest instead. But Hothead Games did an outstanding job of keeping the feel of fights from being repetitive. This was primarily accomplished by encouraging players to do more than just hit the same attack button over and over. They give you four weapon slots, each assigned to one of your face buttons, and urge you to use them all in various combinations.
Because while it’s possible to just use the same weapon repeatedly, if you instead choose to alternate your attacks, and switch between the different weapons, you do more damage, and ramp up your “Justice Meter” more quickly. And the Justice Meter is what you use to launch powerful, special attacks. So as you go along and enemies get increasingly powerful, you’ll find yourself relying more heavily on that little bar.
You also start finding Runes along the way that tell you how to use two different weapons in tandem for special, elemental combination attacks. For instance, if you equip a flaming weapon and a weapon with a spinning attack at the same time, when your Justice Meter is ready, you can launch a flaming, spinning combo attack by hitting both buttons at once.
So all in all, there’s a great deal more depth to the combat in this game than I would have expected.
The game is also loaded with characters you can have insane conversations with. Funny NPC’s wandering around with wrongs for you to right, heroic labors to complete, and more armor and weapons than you can shake a Swamp Donkey tail at.
The graphics in the game are also something to behold. Very cartoonish in style, but crisply and beautifully done, with a great number of different locales to keep your eyes happy. Tons of enemies, both somewhat familiar and utterly bizarre with truly ingenious designs. And a constantly scrolling vista that adds a totally unique flavor to the proceedings.
There were only a few small complaints that I had while playing, and these may have more to do with this being Hothead’s first action-rpg, than anything else. Because most of them took the form of curiously absent loot-grinder conventions that most games in this genre tend to have as a matter of course. For instance, when you highlight a new item in your inventory, there’s no pop-up that compares it’s stats to what’s currently equipped. They do put a green highlight on the weapons and armor with the highest raw numbers, but if you want to get a little more detailed, and equip items with a specific elemental resistance or effect, you’re left going back and forth, manually checking your equipment stats in a long, drawn out process.
Inventory management is even further bogged down by the process of “grinding” items into money. You see, even though there are several vendors in the game world, you can only buy from them. You can’s sell your old stuff. So the only way to get rid of obsolete armor, weapons, and items you don’t want, is to convert them directly into money through your menu interface. You do this by manually dragging each and every item you don’t want down to the lower corner of your inventory, where a little meat grinder icon is. So if you have ten different things you want to grind into gold, you have to do this process ten times. And it gets really repetitive after awhile.
Simply having the option of highlighting an item and hitting a certain button to grind it right where it is would have improved matters substantially. Actually having to drag every single thing down to the bottom of the screen just takes way too much time.
But regardless of these minor gripes, I still had a blast playing through DeathSpank. And while it definitely has a large game world to explore compared to other Arcade titles, I’d love to see a more extended experience made possible by downloadable content. Some armor and weapon add-on packs would be great to keep the loot-grind rolling. And expanding on the existing map would be a nice thing to see too.
Don’t hesitate to grab this one. Justice will thank you!
My Review
Pros Cool art style; Addictive combat; Tons of quests and locations
Cons Inventory management needs work
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