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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."
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
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Outside of a few shining moments of wit in the writing, the game offers nothing in the way of real fun. It's sad, and at the same time very surprising. You'd think that after making fun of bad games for years, the Penny Arcade guys would know how to avoid developing one themselves.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
I got it on 360, loved every moment of it, will probably replay it for achievements soon :) IMHO the 360 version is better, since all the commands are tied well into the various controller buttons, whereas the PC is entirely mouse-driven. Combat is a bit easier on 360 because of this.
My wife & I just finished it last night (she helps with the planning, I click things and go "shiny!").
It's a Japanese-style RPG (I played final fantasy for 15 minutes and got frustrated with it), with some adventure elements and a wicked sense of humor (the Lucasarts guy who worked on it did a fantastic job). So there's the "how and where do I go to make hobo meat edible" adventure-quest element, the fights are all JRPG (which works out pretty well, though I'm sure others can do more with it and still others were turned off by the whole thing), and then there's the dialogue and writing, which are top notch. I have no idea what the requirements are supposed to be, but on my Athlon (single core from about 2 years ago) 3400 with a Geforce GT7600, framerates were great - the stylized "comic-book look" works well here (duh?).
Well worth the $20. We've been playing it for an hour or so a night since it came out, and just finished it.
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this game sucks and anyone who likes it sucks. penny arcade sucks and is as funny as something that's not funny at all.
ddf
There are at least two things to learn here:
First, you can hold the mouse button down. I was ready to write the game off as pitifully annoying after having to click everywhere, but when held down, it's not really worse than any other movement -- probably better than keyboard arrows would have been, in fact.
Second, I'm on Dvorak, so this isn't going to be a problem for many of us, but WASD is not in anywhere near a decent place to be able to use Tycho's combo. Looking at your standard QWERTY layout, my W is where your comma is; my S is your semicolon; my D, your H, and A is in the same place.
The trick to this, of course, is that you are allowed to use the arrow keys instead. I feel stupid for having beat the game before I figured that out.
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On the other hand, you can't increase your Gamerscore or collect achievements with the PC version >:)
This 'gamerscore'... what is the point?
The higher your score the more of a joke your life is? I've always thought people who cared about gamerscores were like forum rats who cared about their post count... as if being on top was something to be proud of.
Or is there more to it? Can it actually get you anything?
The great thing about the 360 isn't beating the games, it's showing everyone online that I did.
I'm not sure why you're so hostile to the idea of gamerscore. I've never payed attention to anything like that, but I can see how it might be fun. Perhaps the "point" is to enjoy competing with your friends in games which may not have a multiplayer element? It's not for me or you but the concept is essentially sound. Don't hate.
With Oblivion, for example, I can look back over all the guild rankings I got and what not. Or in Mass Effect I can look back and see what abilities I unlocked. Or with Gears of War I can remember how hard it was to beat the Berserker on hard (plus, it's got an awesome name: "My love for you is like a truck...")
They can also give you fun objectives to try for in games. There's a great one called "Pacifist" in Geometry Wars. You get it by surviving for 60 seconds without firing a shot...very hard, but also a lot of fun to try and get it. :D
So, while you may find the competitive aspect of it stupid, there's plenty of other reasons that some of us enjoy racking up Gamerscore points and the associated achievements.
"Life's short and hard, like a body building elf." -- The Bloodhound Gang
If you don't have an HDTV, don't get the 360 version. It's letterboxed on 4:3 and the text is nearly unreadable (there's a zoom setting, but it doesn't help much).
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