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Quick Review of Penny Arcade Game
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Thu Jun 05, 2008 05:11 PM
from the wonder-how-they-would-rate-their-own-game dept.
from the wonder-how-they-would-rate-their-own-game dept.
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."
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The Review (Score:5, Interesting)
see my review (after finishing the game): http://forum.playgreenhouse.com/jforum/posts/list/424.page#2684 [playgreenhouse.com]
see my previous vapid comment: http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=566489&cid=23577559 [slashdot.org]
//for some reason criticizing PA writing always garners troll mods
My Review (Score:5, Funny)
ddf
Parent
Re:My Review (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The Review (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:The Review (Score:5, Insightful)
When you compare it to something like Monkey Island, or Grim Fandango, or even most of the Space Quest series, it didn't come up to anything like the same standard.
Parent
Consider it is in four parts though, this is one. (Score:2)
They are also different styles of games, the PA game being a mix of adventure/RPG with the other games you mentioned (I think) being pure adventure, making the mix harder to judge.
I really liked the combat dynamics, and the mix of RPG/adventure felt about right to me - but they will also be playing with that in future episodes, the next on
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
see my review (after finishing the game): http://forum.playgreenhouse.com/jforum/posts/list/424.page#2684 [playgreenhouse.com]
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 perfect
The Game is Mediocre (At Best) (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Game is Mediocre (At Best) (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re:The Game is Mediocre (At Best) (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no reason to think that. Complaining is far easier than doing.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
I enjoyed the heck out of it. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:I enjoyed the heck out of it. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:which to get (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
On the other hand, you can't increase your Gamerscore or collect achievements with the PC version >:)
Re:which to get (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Parent
Re:which to get (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:which to get (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re:which to get (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
About the controls... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Parent