DeathSpank - HotHead Games - PS3/360

[Rasix]

Although the individual parts may fall a bit below expectations, DeathSpank is a beautifully crafted game that is well worth the meager asking price.  Ron Gilbert is best known for Maniac Mansion and the first two Monkey Island games, but this game might endear him to a newer gaming generation that has grown up with deadly serious games and probably needs to laugh.

DeathSpank follows the escapades of the titular hero DeathSpank, played like a knightly version of the The Tick.  His quest is to uncover "The Artifact", with no knowledge of what it actually does or why he's seeking it.  He just is.  Plus it allows him some leeway to help the downtrodden and unfortunate. The Monkey Island style humor means there's lot of absurd interactions with colorful NPCs and a whole lot of hammering away at the fourth wall.  The game often makes fun of action RPG and MMORPG staples, all while asking you to kill some dangerous beasts and return with their gonads.  8 of them to be exact.

The game is part Diabloesque action RPG and part comedy adventure game.  The action RPG portions are solid, if unspectacular.  There are a handful of weapon types that also have a special attack when your "Justice" meter is full.  You have some ranged attacks, there's potions, and other usable items.  You level up and choose a card as part of the leveling up process.  The card will provide a rather mundane bonus like +5% melee damage.  There are no deep skill trees here, but you can tailor, especially early on in just what fashion DeathSpank will kick some asses.  The combat isn't too hard but at the same time isn't really easy either.  Any person comfortable with action RPG games will do just fine,  and even if you're not death is just minor inconvenience. The loot is pretty damn funny and they had a lot of fun with it.  Reminds me a lot of Disgaea in that the items themselves are making jokes.  

The adventure game means you'll have some minor puzzles to solve. Nothing that requires a lot of trial and error or blind luck as a standard adventure game.  The first one that requires you to even really look at your inventory involves getting a taco order right for a retired adventurer (who uses a walker and has an axe protruding from his back). I'm not that far in yet, so perhaps the puzzles get a bit harder.  However, I assume the complexity of the puzzles is something that was justifiably sacrificed to produce this hybridized game.  The dialogue here is really a star, especially as you progress.  The interactions are hilarious. "Red Delicious.. is that his stripper name?".  DeathSpank's dialogue is delivered in the manner of The Tick but has the persistent, yet funny probing style of Guybrush Threepwood.

The game is gorgeous and runs well.  People have complained about tearing, but I didn't really see anything that put me off. The score is great as well.  I'm not going to linger on this much, because it's really just far above what you'd expect for a budget title.

While not great, deep action RPG or a particularly challenging adventure game, DeathSpank is just a lot of fun to play.  It has a lot of fun at the expense of the genres it emulates and manages to provide a funny, engaging experience.  While it's not going to make you do handstands and proclaim it game of the year, it should entertain you for far more than you're likely to pay for it ($15).

Buy it.  If you're really unsure, there's a demo.  But really, buy it.  HotHead games needs to keep this ball rolling.

edit: I'm colorblind gripe #2879 - when you're too low level to use an item, the level range is in a shade of red I can't see against the background. 

[Musashi]

I just finished it.  So I'll just add that it's not a huge time commitment.  A solid fifteen hours max.  I'm not trying to diminish it in any way.  That's the first time I've played a game straight through in a while. 

The quests/puzzles get sort of harder, I guess.  But they get harder in a silly way that's pretty easy to figure out when you remember that the purpose of this game is to be as overtly farcical as possible.  Failing that, you can use fortune cookies you collect for hints that spell it out precisely. 

Overall, for the money you can't really go wrong.  I would buy it again.

Protip:  Equip a Spinning Blade with a Fire weapon and hit them both at the same time when you power up.

[Segoris]

The quests/puzzles get sort of harder, I guess.  But they get harder in a silly way that's pretty easy to figure out when you remember that the purpose of this game is to be as overtly farcical as possible.  Failing that, you can use fortune cookies you collect for hints that spell it out precisely. 

^This. The quests do get a bit harder mostly because the info you have when you first start the quest gets more vague. Then you use a fortune cookie and realize how easy the answer really was and feel like an ass.

I didn't see mention of the coop in the biif, but there is local coop. The second player can join and leave at any point, they share the same health bar with Deathspank, can't use items, and don't level up. Though they can collect items that drop and have abilities to assist Deathspank. The best info I can find on the second player would be this.

While I agree it won't be GOTY, if there was a GOTY for downloadable games only, this would have to win it. I'd say it's another must have right up there with Fat Princess for PSN.

[Rasix]

I didn't see mention of the coop in the biif, but there is local coop.

You'll rarely see local coop mentioned from me. My wife doesn't game and my son is 1.

While I agree it won't be GOTY, if there was a GOTY for downloadable games only, this would have to win it. I'd say it's another must have right up there with Fat Princess for PSN.

Hey, Shadow Complex was my 360 GOTY last year. That was more a result of  the 360 exclusives being pretty weak than Shadow Complex being amazing. However, like DeathSpank, it was limited in depth but absolutely masterfully executed. 

I always tend to mention the negatives, perhaps to a fault.  This game is a whole lot of fun and really brings the funny. 

[Segoris]

You'll rarely see local coop mentioned from me. My wife doesn't game and my son is 1.

Understandable, I don't do much local coop either. I simply figured that there's a number of people around here who always ask about coop/multiplayer and probably would have liked the info. Poor wording on my part though as it wasn't meant as a negative criticism, but rather as something in addition to, since I thought the biff was spot on. I especially agree with 

But really, buy it.  HotHead games needs to keep this ball rolling.

[Lucas]

Nice! It's also getting very good press from all around the Net :). Can't wait for the high resolution PC version. IMO, it will come out around the end of september (steam, most certainly) or something, hopefully with an interface suited to mouse+keyboard.

[LK]

I'll pick this up based on your review.

[stu]

I finally picked this up a few days ago. One thing I like is that Deathspank doesn't seem to help people because he likes to help, but because it fuels his ego and legend.