Quick Review of Penny Arcade Game

Now that it has been in general circulation for a while, Kotaku has a nice simple review of the good, the bad, and the ugly in the new Penny Arcade game, On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness. "When you've been making fun of the video game industry as long as Penny Arcade's Jerry 'Tycho' Holkins and Mike 'Gabe' Krahulik have been, deciding to create your own game is one ballsy move. You have to know that every review site you've ever trashed and every developer you've viciously sodomized with your barbed wit is watching your every move, desperate to see you stumble so they can get in a few licks."

Comments

The Review

[Jack9]

Decent review. A little harsh on the environments, given the engine. Still nothing about the crappy writing given there was so little of it.

see my review (after finishing the game): http://forum.playgreenhouse.com/jforum/posts/list/424.page#2684

see my previous vapid comment: http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=566489&cid=23577559

//for some reason criticizing PA writing always garners troll mods

Re:The Review

[SanityInAnarchy]

From your review:

Fruit Fuckers are over-represented. Why did they keep coming up after you wiped out the source? I think this was mostly for the collection aspect. Where else are you going to get parts? Not an excuse, just an observation.

As my roommate asked, why is Tycho ALWAYS reading a book? That seems realistic, and part of the humor. Tycho is, in fact, always reading a book.

The toilet humor. Fair enough. I don't think there's disproportionately more in the game than in the comic, though.

Re:The Review

[TrekkieGod]

see my review (after finishing the game): http://forum.playgreenhouse.com/jforum/posts/list/424.page#2684

I thought your review was pretty interesting. It does highlight that the game attracted gamers of really different tastes. As a result, everyone liked some aspects of it, and were displeased by others.

Personally, I loved the story and the writing. I see you had issues with a lot of the humor, ("shit...as in poop?"), but that's pretty classic Penny-Arcade style humor. Especially for Gabe dialog. So, at least, it was expected. I'm not saying you're wrong, it's just a matter of taste and it's perfectly fine that you're not into it, but PA fans should like it.

I do agree with you that I enjoyed the fact that the fights were easy. A lot of other people got annoyed by this (like the reviewer of the article). Personally, I disliked the fact that there were any fights at all. I was expecting something more adventure game oriented. You know, find items, figure out where to use the items, solve puzzles, enjoy the story. And that's where I was disappointed.

The game has just enough of an adventure feel to make those of us who enjoy the genre to judge it as such. You walk around an environment, collect items, the emphasis isn't in the action. However, it's also too darn linear. There are no puzzles. There's no thought involved. You're told where you should go at every point. if you walk everywhere in the environment, kill everything, and talk to everyone, you've finished the game. I would have loved the game if it had bigger environments, more puzzles, less fights and mini-games. It would have been perfect.

Re:The Game is Mediocre (At Best)

[Skrapion]

Let me be the first to say it's not for you.

The game isn't going to rank as one of my favourites, but I enjoyed it. For $20, I find it really difficult to complain about anything. They even managed to make JRPG combat fun for me again, and I've been jaded with JRPGs for years.