deathspank |

Publisher: EA Games

Developer: Hothead Games

Release Date: 11/30/2010

Available On

The first DeathSpank gave us some solid RPG action with really funny dialog and wit. Thongs of Virtue is the direct sequel but feels more like an expansion. The game is exactly the same, but with new content. Unfortunately, the game also carries over the same problems from the first game, so not a single thing was fixed or changed. The story is about DeathSpank trying to retrieve three thongs from three evil bosses, but in between, you can do about 150 side quests.

The game is broken up into several areas, just like the first game. You can warp around the world via outhouses, and you will revive at the nearest one if you die. As you do quests for various people, you pick up more powerful armor and weapons along the way. There are new armor and weapons in this game, but everything else is the same. The same food, potions, and other little tidbits like chests. Some chests can only be opened with special keys that have to be fitted by a locksmith, though. There are more areas to explore in this game, which means it’s a bit longer. You can probably finish most of the game in about 15 hours, or 20 if you are slow.

Running around and whacking enemies is the name of the game, but only certain ones can be beaten when you are at a higher level. The level cap is 20 again, but it takes a bit longer to get there this time around. There are more characters to talk to, which means hours of funny and strange dialog. There’s even an area where you can steer a pirate ship and go to little islands to get quest items as well. I actually found the fortune cookie hints to be more useful this time around and rarely needed to use a walkthrough. The last game had poor hints, and even the quest descriptions were pretty poor. At least now most of them tell you where the quest giver is, so you can go back to them without having to wander around.

The biggest issues I had with the last game still exist. You can only have five health potions at a time, so you have to rely on consuming food items. This takes forever, and sometimes you will fail if enemies have projectile weapons because DeathSpank will stop eating if hit. This made combat drag out and become irritating, which just so happens to be the case here too. Most enemies that are around your level will kill you almost instantly if you get ganged up on, so running around in circles eating food is just annoying. Why this wasn’t addressed is beyond me, but it needs to be in the third game, or I actually won’t play it. The game is also full of repetitive fetch quests that I didn’t really think about in the first game. There needs to be more variety in the gameplay and/or quests, because a third helping of this would just be way too much.

Overall, Thongs of Virtue is a fun action RPG for fans of the first game. People who didn’t like the first game will hate this one too, because nothing really changed or improved. Come for the witty and funny dialog, but don’t expect anything spectacular or extraordinary.

Reviewed On

Xbox 360 Controller for Windows

Publisher: Hot Head Games

Developer: Hot Head Games

Release Date: 10/25/2010

Available On

The Dispenser of Justice! Hero of the Downtrodden! Those are just a couple of DeathSpank’s other names in this hilarious action RPG from Hot Head Studios. You play the silly hero DeathSpank in his quest to find the artifact and kill the evil king, Lord Von Prong. LVP wants DeathSpank’s magical thong to become eviler, but in the meantime, you need to do some saving for the downtrodden.

The overall story isn’t much, but the banter with NPCs is what really makes you crack up with the obvious stabs at RPGs and other games. It will take different shots at the genre without even saying anything, sometimes like one quest has you pleasing an orphan in the Demon Mines to put in your orphan bag. You must run into town and get everything she needs, but the store just so happens to have everything you need when you get there, like a cell phone and a pony! This is an obvious jab at RPGs, whose stores always have what you need.

The game also has some more childish jokes, like collecting unicorn poop, finding help letters in dragon poop, and helping villagers make their dirt and stone soup taste better using various animal parts. While this humor may not be funny to all, most will get a kick out of it, and DeathSpank is chock-full of it. Of course, the gameplay is important, and DeathSpank lets you assign four different weapons at a time to use, and there are a ton of weapons, armor, and different types of potions to use. You can even eat various foods to heal up, like pizza, fries, magic mushrooms, and root beer. When you whack enough enemies, you get to unleash your Justice meter, which is a power-up for certain weapons. The game consists of a huge map that you can wander around and travel via outhouses spread throughout the world. There are a ton of quests, and you’re looking at about 10–15 hours of gameplay here that is very entertaining.

The game has two major flaws, and this is the fact that no matter how high you level up or how good your armor is, you will be guzzling potions and healing items every 5 seconds. Enemies respawn when you re-enter an area, and you can’t move on to another until you are at a higher level, or those enemies will kill you quickly. This makes progression slow at first and forces you to complete quests because that’s the only way to really level up. You get very little XP for killing enemies, even if they are at a higher level than you. I found this very frustrating and made the game less enjoyable because of all these weird quirks. I also found that some quests were vague on where to go, and using fortune cookies spread around gives you hints, but those are just mostly useless.

The visuals are nice, but technically the game is very simple; there is a huge variety of enemy types, and you really won’t get bored on that end. The best part about DeathSpank is the humor in the dialog and the funny voice actors who over-exaggerate voices. Even as an action RPG, the game is fun and challenging for anyone looking for something out of the ordinary to play, plus it has co-op play for anyone wanting to share the fun and jokes with a friend.