june gloom on 27/5/2008 at 11:30

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Actually the only real smugness is with people who have no sense of humour who think Penny Arcade is "beneath" them.

mothra on 13/6/2008 at 13:12

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got it on steam, played 1-2 hours last night and can say I like it so far.
not the dialogue which ranges from totally retarded to inspired but the presentation and comic-board panel styling and hillarious turn-based fights do has its charm i must say (and the narrator). so I hope it hold up and will return after I finished it with more thorough observations.

Pyrian on 19/6/2008 at 23:00

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I love the title. The game was vaguely entertaining, which is damning with faint praise so let me elaborate.

Humor: Penny Arcade is always a bit juvenile, and the game is no exception. Honestly it's a bit more tame then I expected. The joke/game-time ratio was probably a bit low, although it definitely made me laugh out loud at several moments. (Favorite line, regarding weapon upgrades: "When in doubt, add spikes." Favorite conceptual gag: Trapping evil mimes with invisible boxes.)

RPG elements: There are no alternate advancement paths. You just get better, get more abilities, and get more/better stuff. Getting basic stuff is trivial, actually, since treasure chests re-spawn and monsters only spawn through triggers. Uninspired.

Combat: The combat system works surprisingly well in most circumstances. I found selecting the right item in the combat inventory a bit daunting in real time, and the whole thing isn't explained very well (I still don't know why the "heal whole party" item forces you to select a target - I lost battles due to forgetting that). Nonetheless, it's intuitive enough to make do. Later battles in particular are a lot of fun: juggling three characters, selecting their actions, blocking enemy attacks, dealing with all the various resistances, weaknesses, and abilities, both of the enemies and available to the player. It's frenetic and right on the edge of what is manageable, which I guess is what makes it fun. There's a lot of combat, so it's a good thing that it's enjoyable.

Adventure Game elements: Yay, quests and quest logs. But ugh, spare me the hunt-and-click fest. I really don't want to have to hunt every tiny little visual element to see what it might do, especially given that the vast majority of them do nothing, including the ones you can click on. I mean, I expect to maybe miss some secrets that way, but a whole quest? Give me a break.

...Yes, this is a cut&paste job, but why write my thoughts twice, y'know?

mothra on 20/6/2008 at 08:58

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I agree with pyrian that the game was a little sloppy made and I expected much more jokes and less monster bashing. I am no fan of WOW or grinding but the cut/paste job of different elements and minigames for special moves was pretty nice. I didn't spend much time examining the different combinations (or achievements, boooo) of moves/items and stats because they were just no fight you couldn't get through (even with the most stupid tactic possible).So that would need a little more work. I don't mind the point/clicking, the mouse symbol does show you if somethings "useable" or just "text". So, will I get the next episode ? probably yeah, like Sam&Max this Game starts off slowly and I hope that when they got their combat stuff fixed they will find better ways to tell the story or incorporate their little jokes.

humor is hit and miss, sometimes odd, sometimes stupid but a few scenes had me cracking. the thing which stodd out the most for me where the little enemy animations when being hit or even dying (gotta love the fat clown). the story itself is as overblown and exaggerated as you would expect from the PA guys and sometimes a little RonGilbert shines through. the visual jokes and artstyle worked for me more than the typical PA conversations shown comic bubbles.

Sam&Max/TelltaleGames, my heroes of episodic adventure gaming nail the humor more often and have the big, big advantage of fully voiced characters which lifts the humor to much higher levels.....and I must say, their quality of writing is unreachable by the PA guys (as of now). PA know how to make a joke but they have to work harder to keep me grinning and twitching through the whole episode. S&M doesn't have combat or respawning enemies, making each encounter more unique where in PA you have more/bigger locations but only filled with repeating stuff and/or enemies. both approaches have their advantages, PA feels much more like a gameworld with an actual big city but S&M crams so much detail in the 2 rooms you can visit I actualy prefer it over PA.

then there's the price.....20 is a little too much I think, I would like to know how much they sold compared to a S&M game for 9 bucks. Well, I'm gonna get the next episode and see if they improve and react to feedback and if the story progresses in an original way. until ep3 I should know if it was worth it.

Ostriig on 29/10/2008 at 23:46

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Can't say I'm interested in the game, but I'm very curious to see what their next ad will look like.