Wet

The Short


Pros
- Third-person shooter-action game with a grindhouse aesthetic to it
- Feels a lot like Max Payne with its slowmo, crazy jumps, and duel-wielding
- The duel-wielding, which auto aims with one gun while you manually aim with the other, actually works pretty good
- The grindhouse look fits the game well and is presented with quality, for the most part
- One of the few games where I welcomed enemy based waves, as the combat was enjoyable
- Fast, furious, and great stress relief
- Soundtrack is straight up great

Cons
- Instead of bosses we have quick-time events. Snore.
- The tacked-on tutorial segments are forced, boring, and don't fit the theme
- If you aren't into everything that comes with the grindhouse genre (swearing, exploitation, innuendos, etc.) you'll feel out of place here
- Stupid Unreal 3 engine...pop-in problems still are here
- Never learns any new tricks; you know 90% of the moves from the get go and the game is just repeating them frequently
- Seriously, "Wet?" Yeah, I get it is for "Wetworks," but I'm pretty sure the joke had to do with female orgasms here.

Rubi is here, and she's pissed. 

The Long

Let's just get right into this: Wet is both an excellent and awful game. Yes, at the same time. As a homage to both grindhouse movies and games like Max Payne (which this game apes a lot of its style from), Wet is a hybrid shooter/slasher with a heavy emphasis on slow-mo and stylized gunplay. Odds are you already know from just reading this whether or not you are into this kind of thing, and if you are you might as well just go pick Wet up right now. It's like $20; you could do a lot worse. 

If you are still here, let's give the rundown and see if this is what are you looking for. But first: I still can't believe this game's title. I guess that was the point: to try and titillate and attract attention, but still...stupid.

This review is rated PG-13 for lots of forced, bad innuendos.

Now that I'm done with all the review foreplay, here's the story. Rubi is a badass bounty hunter who has the unfortunate character flaw of only associating herself with people who will eventually betray her. She swears like a sailor, drinks like her liver is made out of iron, and loves murdering dudes by the the dozen. From a story standpoint, it's your basic fare here: betrayal, revenge, and lots of it. Rubi doesn't take crap from anybody, a point she's determined to frequently bring across (either with bullets, fists, katana, or just yellin').

It works, to a point. The ending is freaking horrible and out of place, and while the story fits the aesthetic it never really does anything interesting. Usually the movies done in this style have some shocking twist in the middle or near the end, but there really isn't anything here. Rubi kills some people who try to kill her, and that's basically it. Not exactly Shakespeare here.

If you like shootin' dudes, though, this game is for you.

The main event of this orgy of blood n' guts is the gameplay, which borrows a heavy amount from Max Payne and then tosses a bit more on the side. The main element here is style. Like the Devil May Cry games, Wet wants you to off dudes in clever, cool ways, and it gives you a hefty amount of tools to do it in. Rubi can slip into slow-mo easier than a hooker out of her clothes, with nearly every movement causing the world to slow down and let her pop off headshots. Grabbing a pole or bar, leaping through the air, jumping to the side from cover, or just getting down on your knees will set Rubi up for a slow-motion scene. The length of time varies on your momentum (for the knee-slide) or the distance (for anything aerial), but basically it goes that if you need slow-mo, you can get to it.

The shooting is slick throughout. You always duel-wield, and the trick here is one gun auto-aims at whomever the camera is most focused on, while you have manual aiming with the second. Meaning you can easily slide between two dudes and get both of them off...I mean pop both of them off...um...KILL both of them simultaneously without breaking a sweat. It's a cool system and helps keep things balanced, because even if you have the worst aim in the world at least the auto-aiming will kill somebody for you.

Rubi is best when she's on her knees. Wait, I already made that joke. 

It's a good thing you have all these tools because the game loves to pretty much just put you in a large environment with tons of toys, throws a truckload of guys at you, and lets you use your imagination and go all out. A persistent combo meter provides both incentive to kill quickly and stylishly, and also has a practical purpose: Rubi will heal if her combo meter stays high enough. There are whiskey bottles between levels that do the same thing, but while in combat this usually is the only way to regen health. As somebody tired of the auto-heal concept in games, this is a nice touch that helps make the game hard but manageable. Kind of like how Space Marine forced you into combat to heal, rather than hide behind a box like a wimp. Captain Titus and Rubi should hook up or something.

Anyway, the point is that this is one of the few games with "lock you in a room and have you fight off waves of dudes" that I actually didn't mind that rather "gamey" aspect of. Killing dudes is a blast, and for some reason the slo-mo style never gets particularly boring. You also have a sword in case people get too close, and let me tell you: Jumping to a pole, grabbing it one handed while shooting enemies beneath you, and then leaping off it in a horizontal, slow-motion dive while raining duel-weapon death from above while plunky guitar music is blasting is entertaining as hell. Yeah, it's stupid, but it's just so fun I can't fault it.

90% of Rubi's acrobatics are for the sole purpose of killing somebody. 

This game does have its faults, though, the biggest being impotence. And by that I mean it runs out really early on. You are presented with just about every move in the book from the very beginning scenes, and while you do get new weapons (and "Rubi Time," which turns the game into a Sin City esque look and basically makes you invincible during select scenes) the core fundamentals never evolve at all. While this tends to be ok because the game doesn't last long anyway (another impotence joke, hur hur) I would have really liked to see some new tricks. Rubi is an interesting character and they could have done more with her limberness and acrobatics, but instead they just give you a few key tools, some slow-mo, and that's it. Gee, thanks. It's like and adult novelty store that only sells three items. Ok, that joke was forced, I apologize.

There is also a distinct lack of boss fights in this game. And by "lack" I mean "none." Every boss is just another wave of enemies followed by a quick-time event. Some bosses forgo the "wave of enemies" part and are just tapping the right button to win. Really? After giving us all these awesome tools, you chicken out when it's time to put them to use during what should be the climax of the game? It's a huge waste.

"Rubi Time" is cool, but why do guys all spray white liquid? Actually...I'm not going there.

A few other minor issues pop up as well. Whenever Rubi gets a new ability it flashes back to her and the junkyard she lives in (why does she live in a junkyard?) to give you an overly long tutorial explaining it. The thing is most of these "new" abilities aren't particularly unique, and the junkyard portions are way the crap too long and too boring. Another issue is the difficulty, and how it isn't consistent. At first the game holds your hand, making enemies stupid easy and your magic slow-motion powers just destroy them. Then it gets really hard and keeps slapping you across the face until you master the techniques. Then it gets easy again because you've figured the game out. It's inconsistent, and results in some stupidly cheap and frustrating deaths, and then moves on to not having much of a challenge at all. It's still fun, sure, but it lacks any sense of accomplishment. 

Insert "analogy referencing Wet to bad, unfulfilling sex" here.

The art direction is top-notch overall, though these screenshots don't do a good job showing it (these are all like promotional stills...for some reason I couldn't find any actual screenshots floating around, and I'm not doing a Google search for "wet" or "wet screenshots" because of obvious reasons). There's a film-grain and film-reel thing going on over the entire game, with the lines and the sometimes off-center screen blocking or whatever it's called; I know jack crap about movie terminology. Just know it looks a hell of a lot like a Grindhouse movie, though at some parts they could have sold it to me better. The multiplier and a few UI elements just straight up don't fit, which can be a bit jarring. But still, it looks really good (despite a few Unreal 3 texture pop-in problems) and they sell it well enough, especially Rubi time which is freaking awesome. Plus it sends you to cool places, which is appreciated. 

The music is excellent. The songs that play in battles and during cutscenes are catchy and fit the whole theme, and are just good songs to boot. I really liked listening to the soundtrack and sometimes even play it on youtube to get me pumped to go out and shoot a bunch of guys with two guns at once while leaping through the air. Don't tell the police. 

This song now is stuck in my head forever. Thanks, Wet.

Is Wet perfect? No, far from it. Parts feel a bit clunky, the balance is totally weird, it has boring bits and the mediocre story and lack of bosses is disappointing. However, as stress relief and a homage to grindhouse movies and stylized action movies, Wet pulls it off and in spades. It certainly isn't for everyone (as I said at the beginning), and even those who love the style will have to overlook it's minor but obnoxious gameplay niggles, but as it stands I had a blast with Wet. Considering you can grab it for less than $20 from just about anywhere, I'd say it would be worth checking into, especially if you liked Stranglehold, Max Payne, or games like that. There aren't enough of these badass, over-the-top shooters, and I'd like to see more of them.

But for now, on the rebound you could go a lot worse than Wet. Though I still think that title is completely absurd.

Three out of five stars. 

"Three out of five? After all that praise? I deserved at least four, raaawr!"

You Don't Know Jack

The Short


Pros
- Same irreverent, silly, weird trivia questions as the original series
- Funny and entertaining while still making you think about some pretty tough stuff
- Four players is a hoot, and with the changes everybody gets to play on every question
- Fast paced episodes mean you can go from one to the next very easily
- "Wrong answers of the game" always keep you on your toes
- Cheap; went for $20 it's first week shipped

Cons
- Since the questions aren't randomized, once you finish an episode you can't ever play it again
- Replaying episodes for achievements sucks
- Single player, this game is pretty boring and makes you feel lame
- Some of the jokes can come off as a little grating. The puppet one, for example.
- The "Jack Attack" at the end pretty much renders the entire game previous irrelevant in terms of earning money

Ready for trivia?

The Long

You Don't Know Jack was a pretty big series back in the 90s, with it's style of inappropriate humor mixed with some actually very solid trivia questions appealing. It had that good mix of stupid humor, smart humor, and smart questions that worked, and since you could play it competitively four-player that was just icing on the cake. They tried to make an actual game show about it on TV, but it flopped pretty hard and You Don't Know Jack was put into retirement.

Now, several years after the last iteration, Jellyvision is trying to bring You Don't Know Jack back for a newer generation. They got the original announcer, the bald upper half of Jack's head (now CGI), Screws, and a freaking boatload of trivia questions (and if it isn't enough, the DLC is cheap and there's tons of it). So what are you waiting for?

Different modes are constantly mixing things up

The core concept of You Don't Know Jack is simple: ask trivia questions. The trick is in the way they do it. They constantly drop weird references, explain bizarre things in silly ways, and just generally go out of their way to be both funny and confusing in order to throw you off track. Half of the game is just figuring out exactly what is being asked, and then figuring out the answer is a whole different ballpark. There's trick questions thrown in the mix that also can mess you up, as well as a "Wrong Answer of the Day" concept I'll go into in a minute.

The biggest improvement for me over the previous Jack games is the fact everybody gets to answer every question. In the previous game people buzzed in and guessed, one at a time. Now there's a timer and all four people answer at once, revealing who was right when the timer runs out. The faster you answer the more cash is at stake, to either gain or lose, so stalling to the last minute if you don't know an answer is certainly an option.

The questions are silly while still being intelligent and difficult. 

They mix up the regular old "answer the multiple choice question" idea with some variations. DisOrDat takes the current lowest scoring player and has them pick whether or not a word on screen (presented in rapid succession) is one thing or another (for example, a Pope or a Brittney Spears Song). There's also the ending "Jack Attack," where you have to match a word with another one based on a theme, and it's pretty much based entirely on player speed. It goes a long way to make it not just silly trivia the time, and it's appreciated.

Wrong answers of the game also mix stuff up. 

Speaking of which, the "Wrong Answer of the Game" is another great new addition. Every episode has a "sponsor" for a totally off-the-wall product, and one question has a wrong answer that's relevant to that product. Pick it and you win tons of bonus money. For example, if the sponsor had something to do with vampires, keeping an eye out for wrong answers with the word "Blood" in them might be a good idea. It makes you pause and decide if the gamble is worth it, because if it's just a regular wrong answer you are out the money.

With friends, Jack is a hoot. The humor hits much more frequently than it misses (though it does miss from time to time) and with a group it can be very easy to do the "just one more episode" thing. It's a great party game that can be played quickly, since each episode is only about fifteen minutes long.

The questions are easily the highlight. 

So what sucks about You Don't Know Jack? Well, not a whole lot to be honest, but there are still a few hangups. The biggest one is if you don't have any friends (or buy the DS version), because playing Jack alone is just...not very fun. Yeah, you still get the funny questions or whatever but the main point of this game is to be played with friends. Playing with yourself (hur hur, irreverent humor) is lame and unfun, and you won't be getting the full value of the game if you do.

Another issue is the episodes. You get over 90 in the game, so that's a boatload of trivia questions, but since each episode never changes once you beat one you essentially can't replay it (unless you want to cheat and smoke all your friends). 90 episodes is a lot, though, so it isn't that bad, it just means this game has literally zero replay value. You can buy DLC packs for super cheap, however, if you really need more content. 

There's a lot of content, but once you burn through it you are done. 

Lastly, it still has the weird balance problems of the first Jack, the biggest one being the Jack Attack at the end is basically what determines the winner, not whoever did best on the previous 10 questions. Since each Jack Attack question is worth so much (to either gain or lose), it is very easy to pull ahead fast or lose it all at the end, especially in a close game. It's kind of lame, but that's how Jack has always been, I guess. 

Also the PC version doesn't have online multiplayer, and playing online with strangers is dumb since they all are just looking it up on GameFaqs. So play with people you know.

The Jack Attack can completely turn a game around. 

You Don't Know Jack, kind of like Deathspank, relies entirely on its humor to sell itself. So if you are the kind of person who enjoys this sort of thing (dig up a few questions or watch a Let's Play to get a feel for it) than You Don't Know Jack is certain to entertain you, especially if you have like-minded friends. Considering the game retailed at $30 and is now easy to pick up at around $10-15, I'd say that's pretty much a no-brainer if you had any fondness for the older games or are looking to dive in for the first time. 

Just know that this is 100% trivia. That's the game. You aren't shooting aliens or stabbing dudes or anything. I don't know why you'd think that, but I figured I should bring it up just in case. 

I personally think this game is a riot, and was absolutely worth the $20 I spent on it. We played it a lot and only got through half of the episodes, so unless you and your friends are total trivia nuts it'll still maintain its good value. Give it a shot! You might find you are smarter than you think (but not smarter than me, because I'm a You Don't Know Jack god, ha ha!")

Four out of five stars. 

Whoops, spoiled this answer for you. 

Week in Review for 4/15/2012 - Half

A Wordle of the book I just finished writing. Bigger words indicate they were used more frequently.

Again, an apology is offered at the lack of content this week. I decided that, between last week and this week, I was going to try and write an entire novel in just that short span of time. Tonight, at 10:15, I finished Half, the ninth full length book I've written, clocking in at almost 80,000 words. For reference, the first Twilight book is about that long. Maybe it's a little shorter. I probably should have factchecked this.

Regardless, I promise I'll try and do better this week. I've been extremely busy with writing, studying for the GRE, work, and all that junk. But I'd like to get back on the two reviews a day train, so hopefully this week I'll pull it off. 

Got 5 reviews this week, totaling up to 148. 150th review this week? Absolutely. 

If you want to know more about the book I wrote, there are details on my writing blog. For now, review sum-up. 

DOTA 2 (Beta Impressions - 5 / 5 Stars

Age of Empires Online - 4 / 5 Stars

Deathspank - 4 / 5 Stars

Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue - 2 / 5 Stars

Bubble Bobble Neo! - 2 / 5 Stars

Thanks for reading! See you all next week!

Bubble Bobble Neo!

The Short


Pros
- Updated version of the original Bubble Bobble with several additional new levels and modes
- Up to four players can play
- Still maintains a lot of the fun, crazy, arcade fun that the original Bubble Bobble had
- Updated music is pretty great, and all the stages are retained

Cons
- Controls are not the same (movement especially) which means some levels are damned near impossible
- Limited lives in an arcade game I paid for? This must be some Japanese bulls***
- Failure to improve in any way on the formulas
- Four player is entertaining but can also prove very frustrating
- Some level design is questionable, and not remaking the levels for the new controls makes the game pretty horrid

Get ready to Bubble, and also possibly Bobble. 

The Long

I freaking love Bubble Bobble, on both the NES and the arcade. It's a fun, silly little game with a unique mechanic that you can play multiplayer, and while being extremely simple still maintains a level of difficulty that is endearing. I never beat it on the NES or Arcade (confession time!) but I did get pretty dang far, and I have lots of fond memories playing it at the Nicklecade with my wife when we were dating (and one of the controllers could only go left, which added a newfound level of strategy to the game)

So when I heard they were re-releasing an updated version on XBLA (which is essentially a port of the Wii remake a few years back) I was pretty pumped. Now I could play with my wife and engage in silly, stupid antics like we did back at the arcade! Without having to drive somewhere! Ah, the convenience of modern technology!

Except one fatal flaw: Bubble Bobble Neo! is totally broken. In the worst way possible. 

The new graphics are ok, but really lose the charm of the 8-bit sprites

Bubble Bobble (the original) was not an easy game, and at parts it wasn't a fair game. It was meant to lure you in with its cute and easy first couple levels, thinking your quarter was well spent, and then swiftly punches you in the face as the levels get trickier and harder. The general gist of the game is that you play a dinosaur that burps bubbles. With these bubbles (of which you can burp lots) you can use them to trap enemies, make small floating platforms to jump off of, and...that's basically it. The simple mechanic of making temporary platforms and jumping off them is pretty basic, but Bubble Bobble did a fine enough job of taking that and making a decent arcade game around it, designed to suck your money away.

The problem is this: they designed every single level around a specific control scheme. One Bubble Bobble Neo! completely and utterly breaks.

One main mechanic is the fact you have to have a slight range to burp out a bubble. If you burp it too close to a wall, it'll pop instantly. This distance comes into play in some levels, where you are put into a very small box with just barely enough room to get out. In the original game, with better bubble and horizontal controls, you could tap to simply turn around and not move. This made things a lot easier. 

Not so in Neo!

In this version, tapping an opposite direction also moves the character, which would be fine except there is only just enough space in the box that, with Neo!'s new mechanics, a bubble will work. Which means you can't ever just turn around without moving. Which makes it essentially near-impossible.

This isn't the level, but searching for Level 72 and you'll find plenty of irate fans. 

I know it sounds like a little thing, but when you design the entire game around a system and then don't bother to adapt the levels when you change the freaking controls and mechanics, it just straight up doesn't work. To say it's frustrating would be a huge understatement: it's completely and utterly maddening. How could they let this happen? Are they complete idiots? 

To make matters worse, this is an arcade game designed to eat quarters, but it gives you a limited number of lives and continues and often drops you off a few floors back. Seriously? Are you being dead serious with me here? I paid $10 for this game and you limit my continues? Wasn't the point of lives to begin with to suck quarters out of people so they could earn more money? You already have my freaking money. Plus, technically this means I have less freedom than the arcade, because in an Arcade I could just pump quarters in and never stop. When you hit a Continue screen in Bubble Bobble Neo! (which, thankfully, you have unlimited continues at least) it drops you back. Freaking crap. I should have infinite lives at all times and no continues, or at least the option for infinite lives. And if both me and a partner die we should just keep going, not have to Continue. I don't want to bag on Japanese game design, but this is total and utter garbage in this day and age, and I find it completely unacceptable. Paired with the piss-poor, uncaring control changes, I can't help but be completely infuriated at this game. 

No amount of bubble-burping will ease my pain in this. 

As for content, there is still a hefty amount here. You have several levels including the original arcade and a few other full modes, complete with secrets and warps to uncover and find. As a bonus you can play the game with four players (if you hate that many people) which turns a somewhat precise arcade game into total madness, which actually works a lot better. Though when you get stuck (and you will get stuck) you have four pissed off people rather than just one, but at least having more bubbles makes the game a bit easier. 

Actually, now that I think about it, it was when we were just having complete madness that I enjoyed the game the most. My wife and I actually beat the original mode, after having to YouTube half the solutions for this "improved" version, and then replayed about half of it with two other friends. It was stupid fun, and I glean some legitimate enjoyment from it. I then put the game down and never played it ever again, because it still sucked, but hey...something positive I guess.

It still has that perfect blend of competition and co-op while playing multiplayer that makes it fun. Sort of. 

Graphically it looks...decent. The updated the pixel art to low-rez sprites (much like TMNT: Turtles in Time Reshelled...isn't that an apt comparison?) which are ok and still maintain most of the charm, but ultimately didn't really do it for me. The updated music is really good at least, sounding modern while still retaining its original silliness. An option to switch back to the original graphics (or controls, gosh dang it) would have gone a long way in making this game work better for me, but sadly that is not the case. Also, as the stages were originally designed in 4:3, all the widescreen bits just add boring padding on either side. Snore. 

Bubble Armageddon! 

Before I hit the conclusion let me say this: Despite those levels where the game is completely and utterly broken, the rest of the game plays almost identical to the original version. It's still a fun, arcade style romp that you may or may not have fond memories of, and the majority of the levels still work decently despite the stupid control changes. It's just those few where everything goes horribly wrong that the irritation really sets in, and you wonder if anybody actually playtested this game past the first 50 levels. Maybe it was too hard for them or something. I guess that makes sense.

Anyway, point being this: you are better off getting a copy of Bubble Bobble on the NES for a few bucks more and just playing that. Or going to an arcade, spending a few quarters, and getting your fix there. Or pretty much anything else aside from this version. Sure, you'll have a decent amount of fun for a while, but once the massive problems start showing up (or if you want to, I dunno, ever beat the game) than the game becomes total garbage. It's too bad, seeing as all they had to do was basically re-release the original Bubble Bobble with the "enhanced" graphics and it would have worked. Just goes to show: don't try and "fix" something that doesn't need fixing.

Which reminds me I have a Silent Hill HD Collection review to get to. But that's for another time.

If you absolutely can't live without Bubble Bobble in your life and have no other options, I guess you gotta roll with Neo! But if not, pass it up. There was no care put into this product, and it shows. 

Two out of five stars. 

The game developers, after realizing they duped everybody into buying their "enhanced" version. 

Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue

The Short


Pros
- Same entertaining humor as the first Deathspank
- Still has Ron Gilbert on board, which means the writing is still reasonably solid
- Amps up the insanity level to new heights with bosses like Santa, a gingerbread Rambo, and more
- Most everything good from the first game has been retained
- New areas including a wild west, war trenches, and the freaking moon are funny and entertaining

Cons
- Is literally exactly the same as the previous game but with guns, which don't actually change stuff much
- Due to the cliffhanger ending of Deathspank, it makes me think these were once two games that were split
- Humor is still decent but doesn't bring anything new to the table
- One game was ok. Two you start feeling the grind as the weaker gameplay elements become exacerbated.
- No improvements make this game feel like a cop-out

Deathspank: Saver (?) of Christmas!

The Long

I liked the original Deathspank. Sure, there wasn't really any particular depth to the game, but its lampooning of traditional genre tropes while still pulling out a solid enough loot hack-n-slash made it easy to overlook any minor problems it had. I loved the script (and would address my wife with a "GREETINGS, TACO WENCH!" for several months following) and had a blast with it, but when I finished I was pretty much tired and done with it.

So when Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue was announced and then released, I was looking forward to see what else they'd do with the formula. I expected they'd at least fix the problems of the last game (the tedium that sets in pretty quickly, the sort of lackluster loot, the obnoxious food-eating) before shoving out a full-fledged sequel. The first game was the trial run, and now in the second you bust out the serious humor mixed with all the improvements you've been making the two months (yes, only two months) between the original and this game's release.

Well, guess what. They didn't fix anything. Which is a problem.

Deathspank: An old dog with no new tricks!

This should be the shortest review ever, because gameplay-wise there is literally nothing new here. You still can auto-equip all the best armor loot, which is incrementally better with no real special effects (meaning there's no choices to be made, which is kind of the point of these types of loot systems). You still get JUSTICE and dispense it accidentally because the system isn't particularly refined. The weapons are even exactly the same with the exact same powers except with a slightly modern look (magic lightning wands are now magic lightning taser-sticks, etc). You get guns that function pretty much the same as bows, so even that isn't changed. 

I was willing to give the sort of weak gameplay a pass in the first game because it was just that: a first game. It was still novel, and right when I started getting really sick of it the game ended. Booting up a brand new game, however, to find nothing new whatsoever resulted in me literally sighing and going, "Oh, I remember this. I was done with this. Huh." As a second game, I'd expect at least one major change. I can't think of any, at all. Which is bad. 

Deathspank: Like your grandfather trying to use an iPhone!

The story and humor is still here, though it lacks the punch of the original game. Swapping out the generic fantasy setting for a more modern one actually hurts the game, because that element of parody is no longer there. Yeah, you go to some way crazier places in this game (an alien invasion in a dark forest, a wild-west desert, a disgusting food production plant, the North Pole, the freaking moon) but it all feels very disjointed and not really fitting to a theme. What the hell time period is this? We have guns but everything looks like World War I, until I go to the Wild West, and then into space? Did the writers just go completely freaking insane after the first game?

Again, the humor is still here, and it still works for the most part, but an important factor in humor is the circumstances around the humor when it takes place. And while a few parts (the Wild West and North Pole especially) do work really well, the rest of it feels disjointed. It's like the writers just wrote jokes without actually taking the time to figure out the setting or who was saying it, and that sort of "generic" humor really hurts it. I still got a hefty amount of chuckles from the stupidity (mostly because I think Deathspank is the bomb), but looking back I can't name one line of dialogue from Thongs of Virtue that really stuck out. I can spout off plenty from the original Deathspank.

Deathspank: Thinking Vietnam is a great time in history to make fun of!

While we are still in the same vein of "stuff that is exactly the same as Deathspank," the music hasn't changed. At all. The only new song I found was one that plays when you are on a boat (probably because there is no boat in the first Deathspank) and I think a song on the moon? Was there a different song on the moon? And maybe the North Pole? Ok, so maybe there were a handful of new songs, but the regular walking around music, battle music, and even title screen music was all exactly the freaking same. Which makes me believe (along with the fact the game came out only two months after Deathspank) that they had both games stuck together and then broke them up in an attempt to get more money. Which technically worked because I'm an idiot. Dang it. 

Anyway, the graphics also maintain the same look as the first, but with a more dingy, grimy feel for about the first 2/3 of the game. Look, Deathspank worked because it was colorful and silly. Fighting in the trenches, Vietnam, and other dark and ugly places isn't what I want from this. It isn't funny, and it isn't cute. It's dreary and depressing and really, really boring to look at. It's like they didn't even know what made their first game good, and just went crazy thinking up stupid places you could go. Actually, I'm pretty sure that is exactly what happened.

A few places look ok (again, I liked the Wild West part a lot) but as a whole it's dark, dreary, and boring. Any bit of charm from Deathspank is lost on the abusive relationship this game has with its art style.

Deathspank: "Welcome to earth!" 

So is there anything redeemable about this casually generated, money-grabbing sequel? Well...I still beat it. And after I got over my initial "What the crap? This is the same freaking game?" I still had a decent time with it. These games are addictive by nature, the formula designed to suck you in even if the experience is shallow and droll. It's like MMOs, where you know you are bored and you should do something else, but that underlying drive to keep playing makes you continue to waste time. And then when you accomplish some tiny minute thing the victory is shallow, like you've just burned hours you could have spent doing something, anything, and you would have gotten more satisfaction. Like play Portal 2, or write a novel. Something like that. 

Truth be told, Deathspank would have been better had it just stopped after the first game. I love the character and think the style is charming, but after tainting it so badly with this rotten sequel I don't think I can go back. Then again, I just bought The Baconing (the third Deathspank game) off some PC indie bundle, so I guess I'll be diving back in. I just don't expect a good time, not after Thongs of Virtue.

Two out of five stars. 

Deathspank: Shouldn't have come out of retirement. 

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. 

Age of Empires Online

The Short


Pros
- Age of Empires is finally back, with all the fundamentals you know and love
- Improved UI controls help you better manage the large number of resources and technologies
- The biggest change, the fusion between RTS and MMO elements, is actually extremely well done
- Earn experience through missions and battles to unlock more techs
- Every unit can be equipped with gear, and the loot is plentiful and has cool features
- Just one Premium Civilization can net you hundreds of hours of play
- Hundreds of unique and fun missions, with side missions and repeatable missions making for tons of content
- Unlike original Age of Empires, the four current races (Celts, Greeks, Persians, and Egyptians) are all extremely unique and have specific units and techs the others don't
- Goofy, cartoony art style is charming while still reminding one enough of the original games
- Finally on Steam, which means $120 worth of content was on sale for $13

Cons
- Unit pathfinding and response is awful, and is easily the worst part of the game
- Repeatable missions are fun but are always exactly the same as the last half-dozen times you played it
- No difficulty level or difficulty indication on missions
- No easy way to transfer gear between your purchased civilizations
- While it's technically "Free to play," the free elements are little more than a glorified demo
- Despite having a good deal of variety between missions, a lot can be beaten with repeat tactics
- Only four civilizations currently playable

While some things are different, others stay the same. 

The Long

Age of Empires 2 was my first real strategy game, that and Command and Conquer Red Alert, so you can imagine I have a hefty amount of nostalgia for this series. After burning through countless hours on both Age of Empires, Age of Empires 2, and the expansions, I was bummed when Age of Mythology and Age of Empires 3 weren't everything I hoped they would be. They were hardly bad games, just underwhelming ones, like they were in the shadow of the incredible Age of Empires 2 and couldn't get out of it.

And then the series disappeared. Ensemble, the original makers of these games, made Halo Wars and then was dissolved. I'm pretty sure everybody figured this series was dead, especially since the last game was set in colonial times. Where do you go from there? World War I? Actually that would be cool, I take it back.

When Age of Empires Online was announced as a free-to-play, MMO style "reboot" of the original game, I'll admit I jumped onboard the "fan backlash" wagon. Why was the new art style more like a cartoon than the original realistic games? Why was there only two civilizations from the start, when the point of Age of Empires was to have a billion (almost identical) civilizations to play through? Why was 90% of the game barred with the "free-to-play" model, and instead of microtransactions it cost a whopping $120 for a season pass? The game just seemed to be making every mistake in the book, and despite playing the demo and begrudgingly enjoying it, there was no way I could justify the $20 purchase for one premium civ. I mean, that's the cost of full games! 

The cartoony style grows on you, and is actually pretty good looking for a free-to-play game

Then the game popped up on Steam a few weeks ago, with a massive sale: every available thing in the game (currently) including four premium civs and two expansion packs for $13. How could I pass on that? Remembering I liked the demo, $13 was well within my "worth the risk" quota. So I bought it.

And have since sunk around 100 hours into the game in about three weeks. It has become my perfect drug.

So rather than blab about myself for paragraphs here, let's get on with the review. Why, despite all odds, has Age of Empires Online hooked me more than any other game I've played in months? What are the fundamental changes here, and what do they do that's unique? Read on and I'll tell you. 

At it's core, this game is very much an Age of Empires game

First off, let me say this: if you enjoyed the old Age of Empires games you'll feel right at home here. The game still has a hefty focus on multiple resource management (food, wood, gold, and stone) as well as building massive armies and then "aging up" to a new tier of abilities, technologies, and units. You still need tons of wood since it's the most important resource, still can focus either cavalry, infantry, or naval warfare, and still need like fifty villagers in order to pay for all this. This is Age of Empires. 

The changes, however, become very apparent from the second you start playing. 

This game apes a lot of RPG elements from MMOs, which a lot of people complained about when it was first announced. However, after sinking over 100 hours in across three civs (Egyptians, Spartans, and Celts, with Egyptians being my main) I can tell you this: the MMO elements are implemented perfectly. But here's the real important thing: you'll spend 90% of this game playing by yourself. Sure, almost every mission has a co-op option, but unless your friends are online (or you have a thing for PvP), 90% of this content is essentially single player. And, as single player Age of Empires experiences go, this is the best out of the entire series. Hands down. Yes, I just said that. 

Let me explain myself before you lynch me. 

So here's how the game works. First off, you have a main city that serves as a quest hub for your game, though you travel to many other cities around Africa, Europe, and Asia to get more quests, help the natives, etc. Your main city is basically a monument to your accomplishments. You can buy multiple buildings (I have a huge pyramid I earned on a particularly difficult set of missions), set up shops to gather lingering resources, and basically assemble things you want. Having a main city to care for is cool, even though it really is just there for looks and applying the upgrades you get.

The RPG elements come in full force as you realize how the mission structures work. Like most MMOs, around the city people will have giant exclamation points over their head and will then offer you quests. Most of these are a variation on building up a base and an army and crushing the enemies, but there is actually a crazy variety, like the people at Robot and Gas Powered Games weren't afraid to make it a little weird. There's tower defenses, camel races, and my favorite: one where you have infinite resources but extremely limited time to build a massive army and sweep your enemies. While the main "plot" quests tend to follow the same pattern, there are so many challenges, special missions, universal missions (such as "kill 100 fishing boats" that carries over between other missions) and repeatable missions that the content is just staggering. There's always something both new and old to do here, with repeatable missions able to be played again every 12 hours for more rewards. 

Though it still boils down to massive armies clashing at some point along the way. 

As you complete missions you gain XP, both from killing units in-mission to the actual quest completion. As you earn enough XP your civilization levels up, and when that happens you earn points to buy technologies. Unlike previous Age of Empires games, where all techs are unlocked from the start for each mission, you have to buy them with your level up points. Which sounds like a pain (and it kind of is at first, when you have no options) but it forces you to decide what route you want to go in your game since you can't have everything right off the bat. For example, as the Spartans I decided to tech heavy gold economy and focus on foot-soldiers, earning upgrades that made them build faster and cheaper. While as the Egyptians I went straight cavalry and heavy economy, completely ignoring the religion, foot-soldier, and trading trees. The game also rewards you by sticking to one group with "ultimate" passive techs you learn when you reach Age 4 (at around level 15). These are always-on and very powerful (such as all military units passively healing 2 hp/sec, or increasing village run speed permanently by 35%) and serve as good goals to reach. This addicting draw to gain just one more level and get that technology is one part of many that makes this game addicting.

Levels also come relatively quickly, though they do slow down at around level 20. It'll probably take you 50 hours to get to level 20, across dozens of missions, but since there is relatively little downtime (unlike most MMO based games) the leveling still feels very quick. About 3-5 missions and you'll rank up (the number required increasing with levels), and since XP increases with your rank it never feels like a grind. It's an excellent balance that doesn't frustrate or overly reward you, which means it is perfect. 

The massive city of "SPACE EGYPT" needs no introduction!

This is compiled with the drive for loot, of which there is a-plenty. Age of Empires Online's system focuses mostly on random loot chests. Every mission has several "guardians" you can kill in the world that will net chests and most mission rewards include one. These are random when you open them and have a chance to give you good gear, resources, blueprints, or just about anything. So how does loot work in an RTS game? Easy: you equip your units.

No, seriously. Every single unit (and building!) in Age of Empires Online has a list of equips. Most have four slots (weapon, armor, helmet, misc.) while some have less. Abilities range from decreasing price, increasing damage, adding a critical hit chance, decreasing build time on all techs and units built, increasing gather rate (for villagers) and more. Like any good MMO loot is color coordinated, increasing the drive to get the good stuff. Lots of missions have specific rewards you can get, letting you pick a powerful piece of gear that best fits your current playstyle. Let me tell you: trying to max out your units with the best gear is addicting as hell. And since you are constantly being rewarded, you want to push "one more mission" just to see if you can get some awesome stuff. It's...bad. For my productivity.

This is on top of even more robust systems. You can craft your own items and weapons if you have resources, which can be earned on missions or harvested if you buy the right buildings for your capitol. You get advisers who provide a unique bonus, one per age, ranging from decreasing costs to increased unit build time. There are hundreds of advisers you can buy or find in random loot boxes that dramatically change gameplay. There's also one-time use items that can summon armies, give you a temp boost, and more. The abilities mix very well with the RTS systems already in play, and since the core element is so solid all these extras feel...really good. And quite cool.

You can rearrange buildings in your city, if you want it to look awesome. 

So let's address the two big complaints people had: the lack of available civilizations and the pricing model. First, with regard to civilizations, I'm just going to say I don't care that there is only four, and here is why. In the original Age of Empires games, yes: there were like twenty civilizations available to pick. But aside from locking you out of specific techs and one unique unit apiece, they weren't very different. All their units were essentially the same and none were really unique. In Age of Empires Online, every civ is dramatically different, like Starcraft II and its races. Greeks/Spartans are a rush race, with lots of powerful cheap units but no serious punch once you hit the later ages. Egyptians have a very slow start without even a dedicated archery building, but their priestesses boost economy and let you tier up quickly to their ultimate unit: kick butt elephants. Celts have almost no horses but focus on strong, massive amounts of infantry and siege, and Persians...I haven't played enough to say, but I'm certain they are unique too. Since you only take control of one civilization to build your city anyway, and since each one is unique, actually having more than one (which I do since I bought the pack) actually feels redundant. I like Egyptians best, so I'm glad I'll play them. I always just played the same two races in Age of Empires 2 anyway (Goths or English) so there isn't really any real loss here. Trust me: once you get deep enough, the unlocks make it so the races stay fresh even if there are only four.

The second is the pricing model, which I admit was total garbage when the game was first released. They tout it as "free-to-play," but playing on a non "premium" civ ("premium" being a bought one) locks you out of most gear, all advisers, and tons of missions. Yeah, you can still play, but after you hit around level five the game sucks. So if you want to spend serious time, be prepared to invest.

Luckily, however, this game avoids microtransactions (I hate those) and just has large packs you can buy. A premium civ started at $20 (which, looking back, isn't bad) but is now around $10 on Steam and cheaper if on sale. You have to have a premium civ to play PvP, so keep that in mind. There are also challenge packs and what not you can purchase, which are fun but not really worth the $10 unless you are really out of stuff to do, and if you are then you've spent like 200 hours in this game so I guess you love it enough to make it worth it. 

As it stands, the $13 I paid feels like a deal too good to be true. Between four civs we are looking at anywhere between 500 to 1000 hours of time if I really want it (I probably won't; that's a lot of Age of Empires) and most of that time is quality. It's crazy how well this game fits together when it shouldn't, but considering I just paid less than most full games (and less than if they'd released a disc-based numbered Age of Empires sequel, which probably would have been $60) I feel like I got a pretty killer deal here.

The Celts look the coolest, but the Egyptians get War Elephants...aka the biggest hax ever. 

So what is bad about this game? I've been singing its praises because I've spent so much time with it the past few weeks (and show no sign of stopping), but there's gotta be some problems here, right? Well...yeah. There's a actually quite a few.

The biggest is bad pathfinding. For those who don't know the term, it's when you order units to go to an area they follow an AI directed route. If they have good pathfinding, the units will move intelligently. If not, they move like idiots. While not as bad as some RTS games I've played, the units in Age of Empires Online  are pretty dang stupid. It's a core thing that should have been addressed early on (especially since all the previous games had this problem; you think they'd fix it for a modern reboot) and gets annoying.

What is even more broken, however, is Attack-Move. Again, for the uninitiated this is essentially the most important order in any RTS. You order units to move to a location, but to attack any enemies they find along the way rather than run blindly to the goal. The problem here is it only seems to work about 75% of the time, if that, and weirdly enough if they are in the middle of attacking and then you order them to attack move again they'll stop attacking and often retarget. What? 

Unit attack priority is also a huge mess, meaning you are gonna micro a lot. In a good RTS, the priority goes something like this (in terms of who your units attack when left alone): enemy units attacking you, enemy buildings attacking you, enemy units just sitting there, enemy buildings just sitting there. Makes sense, right? You'd think you'd want to attack who was hitting you. But it Age of Empires Online, when it isn't being completely random it's something like this: enemy units attacking you, any enemy units, any enemy building, maybe a building attacking you. I swear they hit towers last, which is completely stupid (especially on siege equipment). I mean, sure, it isn't hard to micro these guys to doing what I want, but I shouldn't have to. How do you mess that up? 

Skirmish is fun, even if you have to buy it separately. 

Another problem is the repeatable missions. Now, I'm glad you can repeat missions, because if not eventually you'd run out (though I haven't yet so...there's a lot). But the problem is they never change. Which means I've done the same "burn down the boats" mission who knows how many times, every experience being almost exactly the same. At least some at least sort of randomize the map, but there are quite a few that don't even do that! So it's literally the same damn thing a hundred times over. I guess you don't have to do them (I have like 10 missions currently I can cycle through on repeat) but...seriously, would it be that hard to make every map randomized? Even the challenge missions do it.

Lastly, repetition does tend to set in. Since most missions are the "build a base, destroy enemies" variety, the first 10-15 minutes of each mission can be the same as all the others. You build villagers, scout, find where your resources are, tech up and build a small army for defense, and then after a while maybe somebody will attack you. Since most maps start you around a similar resource pool (berry bushes and gold next to the Town Center, stone a little ways of, a large clump of trees with an expansion gold pool near it) those first couple of minutes quickly become simple repetition, over and over. And while this isn't bad (every other RTS in the history of the world does this) it starts to show the grind during long play sessions. 

You explore and do quests all over the world, which is kind of cool. 

The graphics and sound are excellent. I know a lot of people hated the "cartoony" new look, which was clearly to broaden the game's appeal, but I think it fits the new direction the game has gone. Though I will admit the way the extremely thin Egyptian Priestesses wobble their hips/butts around when meandering around the map looks a bit...totally stupid, when in the heat of battle you probably won't care, and generally everything is non-offensive. I like how sometimes they turn into little graves with flowers (instead of falling into corpses like the older games), and the graphics are simple enough but employ enough of a unique style that you can run them on any machine, and they'll still look good maxed out. Valve, look into this, because DOTA 2 looks really boring in comparison.

Sound design is good, with every civ talking in their native tongue, and cute music clips playing victoriously after each mission (and each fits the style of the civ in question). I just wish they had more background mission music, as I'm so tired of hearing the same basic Egyptian melody. I guess you could just plug music in or something, but it's kind of annoying still.

It doesn't sport the highest polygon count, but the style really shines through. 

As it stands, for the extremely low asking price for a single civ, Age of Empires Online is really worth looking into if you have any love of either the series, MMOs, or just RTS games in general. It tries something new with it's blend of RTS and RPG MMO elements, and generally everything pulls through flawlessly. Though I'd personally check out the demo and playing a few missions with all civilizations, and then just pick one to buy. Seriously, now I feel obligated to get all these stupid civilizations to max level, and that's gonna take me the rest of my life. Not to mention they'll probably release more in the meantime, which'll just add to my addiction. 

While it had glaring faults on release, there is no denying Microsoft took this series in the right direction by both putting it on Steam and letting them drop the price. Aside from a few control issues and frustrations (and if the server disconnects you mid mission you have to start over from scratch...bullcrap) Age of Empires Online is extremely solid, and proves to be a superb follow-up to a series that was beginning to stale a bit. As much as I opposed the idea at first, I can't help but think this was probably the best they could have done with this franchise. Highly recommended.

Four out of five stars. 

Ah, how times have changed.