The year is 1922 it is a peaceful day in New Arcadia. Your garden is in a bit of a state so you grab your rake and begin. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a huge shape looms over our house. It’s nothing less than monstrous, a giant robot that tramples your house leaving nothing but devastation in it’s wake. As you watch the enormous robot menacingly boom down the street, two strange men charge through the wreckage and chase after the mechanical nightmare. Hell bent on revenge, armed with your trusty garden rake and now in need of somewhere to live, you catch up with the two men and together embark on an adventure of apocalyptic proportions.
Penny Arcade’s web comic has a huge following and is very successful especially in the U.S. Writer Jerry Holkins and Illustrator Mike Krahulik’s popular main characters Tycho and Gabe have been around in comic form since 1998 this is their first venture into the big wide world of gaming.
Episode One is a quirky, humorous Xbox LIVE Arcade RPG Adventure that is available to download from marketplace for 1600 Microsoft points. It’s more pricey than your usual Xbox LIVE Arcade game but then this is not your usual Xbox LIVE Arcade game. Rated 18+ It’s certainly not a game for the family or those easily offended who don’t appreciate the funny side of bodily fluids and fruit fucking. It’s for us adults who don’t take life too seriously and have a wicked sense of humour.
You take on the role of um…you. After customising your gender, looks and choosing from a few different snazzy outfits you become the new partner of Tycho and Gabe – The Startling Developments Detective Agency – and join them on their latest quest to thwart evil and kick bad guy ass.
The storyline is pretty linear there’s no real side missions as you must complete all objectives to obtain items and parts needed for weapons. Nice for the score-whores as most achievements come as a matter of course. As one would expect from Penny Arcade there’s plenty of clever humorous dialogue and colourful characters who must be spoken to in order to advance. I found myself wandering back and forth like a dick after not paying attention to the dialogue till I started to focus and read between the lines when necessary.
Combat is turn based which I found annoying at first being a run & gun kind of gamer, but as I progressed, picking up the abundant power-ups & creative weaponry I began to appreciate this more chilled-out form of defeating the enemy which only got more frenetic and exciting as I progressed. You’ll find yourself doing battle with (among others) drunken hobo’s, psychotic little robots and uber annoying mimes YAY! Does anybody actually like mimes?
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.