Deathspank

The Long


Pros
- Funny, silly game from Ron Gilbert, one of the writers from The Secret of Monkey Island
- "Diablo Lite" with hacking, slashing, and plenty of looting
- Surprisingly long quest with loads of enemies, bosses, and bizarre places to visit
- Charming "pop-up book" graphics fit the silly dialogue and weapons perfectly
- Voice acting is solid throughout
- Co-op is a silly, stupid blast

Cons
- Gets very repetitive
- Hardly any depth at all to the RPG mechanics
- Limited amounts of loot make the game feel a bit stripped
- Title is freaking stupid
- If you don't think this game is funny, there isn't anything here for you

Deathspank: Grabbing his thong and saving some orphans!

The Long

Deathspank is just about as weird as its title. Set in a bizarre world of orphans, orcs, and taco wenches, Deathspank stars...Deathspank, a hero whose mother clearly hated him by giving him the worst name in the history of bad names. Deathspank is a hero, if an inept one. He's like The Tick, or Kronk, or...actually he's really like The Tick. Anyway, Deathspank's adventure to recover the ancient artifact known only as "The Artifact" is an entertaining mix of Diablo-style combat, loot gathering, leveling, and adventuring. All with a silly, stupid coat of paint and a script that constantly breaks the fourth wall as it makes fun of itself. Sounds pretty good, right? Well, it is! With a few problems.

Deathspank: Visitor of generic enchanted forests!

Deathspank touted pretty heavily the involvement of Ron Gilbert, one of the chief designers behind the amazingly funny and damn near perfect Monkey Island games. While his actual level of involvement was never really said, you can see bits of the Monkey Island games in here. Sharp writing, both clever and silly, pepper every line of dialogue. Tooltips and flavor text, either for items or simply in tutorials, are extremely entertaining and strike the right balance between being both stupid and funny. It doesn't even come close to being as smart as the Monkey Island games, but Deathspank (like its title) wears its stupidity on its sleeve and follows the formula throughout. So if you played the demo and thought it was hilarious, just know that's only the beginning: there is a lot here to love.

The story itself is just as stupid as you'd might expect, and because of that it makes it hard to judge. Deathspank is off on a quest to get "The Artifact," a magical item that does...something. Once he gets it the thing is swiftly taken away, however, and he's sent on a whole new quest: rescue orphans to help a corrupt mayor get re-elected. Wait, so that Artifact thing that was in the opening movie...that was just a joke? Was that supposed to be funny? That's one of the problems with it: I'm not sure when I'm supposed to laugh because the plot takes a totally idiotic direction or if it just was bad writing. Anyway, I found it funny that the Artifact thing was so heavily touted and then completely dropped about 1/4 of the way through. 

Deathspank: Hero or creepy creeper? You decide!

Everybody has tons of things to say, and Deathspank's flamboyant reassurances to everybody that he is a "Hero to the Downtrodden" solidify him as one of the stupidest yet oddly endearing heroes in game. My previous reference to him being like The Tick is pretty much dead on: he even talks the same way, with a low voice that rises and falls as he gets more and more excited about being a hero. Just seeing him interact with normal people (like a lady manning a taco stand) leads to hilarity, and since all his dialogue choices are completely and utterly absurd (which fits) you get plenty of humor that way as well.

However, plenty of people find this type of humor grating or just straight up not funny. Again, play the demo (or watch some trailers). If you laughed, then you should probably get it. If not...well, the writing and humor help pull the somewhat lackluster gameplay (more on that in a second), so if you don't like the comedy there isn't much here. 

Deathspank: Bringing families together!

So what about the game itself, you ask? It's a relatively simple Diablo style hack in slash stripped down to the very basics. At the core of this is the fact that every face button is mapped to a weapon. That's right, Deathspank quad-wields. Take that, Master Chief! The reason you have so much crap is that while you are doing the aforementioned hacking and/or slashing, if you alternate between different weapons you can get combos (while using the same weapon over and over breaks it) which in turn gives you more JUSTICE, or magic. JUSTICE allows special weapons to do one powerful attack (stunning, area damage, etc) but the problem is that you can't save your JUSTICE. If you are mid-chain and the JUSTICE meter fills and you accidentally use a weapon with a JUSTICE ability, say goodbye to all your JUSTICE.

I like saying JUSTICE in all caps, can you tell? Anyway, moving on...

Deathspank: JUSTICE

As expected, you acquire a variety of gear and new weapons to constantly be switching out. Deathspank has two neat features that I appreciated: you have an option to have all gear auto-equip if it is better than what you are currently wearing, and you have an item called the "Grinder" that you can turn any unwanted stuff straight into cash right from the inventory. While I just said I like the features, the auto-equip kind of makes an already simple game simpler, since you don't need to manage your inventory much beyond simply swapping out for new weapons. 

The game also has to methods of healing: eating food and straight use potions. Food heals you slowly over time, and while you are doing it you can't get hit or use weapons or the timer will break and you'll only get a small amount of healing. While this is ok, I got so tired of hearing the same damned chewing animation coming from Deathspank I wanted to rip my ears out. And since you can only hold a very limited number of potions (vs food, where you can carry a ton) expect to hear the chewing sound a lot. 

Deathspank: Looter of graveyards!

It's unbelievably simple, and while they tried to get you to switch buttons it still falls into routine several hours in. Deathspank is about a 8-10 hour game (give or take) and once you hit max level there really isn't much to play for. You get tons of money and nothing to spend it on, so maxing out (which you will do a decent distance before the end if you do side-quests) makes an already somewhat tedious game extremely boring. 

Luckily the same "hack, slash, eat, repeat" formula can be broken up by playing co-op. Your friend takes on Sparkles the wizard, who shares levels with you and is essentially immortal. Sparkles has the best move in the game: a free heal for Deathspank, which helps cut back on the "eating" parts. He can also attack offensively, though he doesn't get any gear or levels. It's a fun diversion if you have somebody who wants to help but isn't invested, though it wouldn't have hurt to have fleshed it out a bit more. 

Deathspank: Even the menu music is silly!

The game is a downloadable only title, but still manages to look great thanks to a dedicated sense of style. The world has a "rotating just over the horizon" look similar to games like Animal Crossing, with intentionally flat background objects that look like things from a pop-out coloring book. It's a good look for the game and matches the style very well, though the actual character and enemy sprites do have a rather low polygon count (though they still do well fitting the goofy style).

There isn't much music, unfortunately, but what there is is also silly and fits. The battle song gets a bit repetitive, but it was all catchy and never got bad enough to get on my nerves.

Deathspank: Doer of stuff!

So, is Deathspank worth the $10 or $15 it goes for on various downloadable services? If you enjoy Diablo style games and find the humor funny, I'd say jump on it. It's a fun 8-10 hours despite repetition (but hey, since when are Diablo style game not repetitive?) and the humor can really help you gloss over its less desirable parts. If dumb, silly humor with a dash of wit is your thing, grab your thong and get deathspankin'!

Four out of five stars. 

Deathspank: The hero this world deserves, at least until somebody better comes around.