On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One
Wednesday marked the release of the new game from the Penny Arcade folks, On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness. Tycho and Gabe have been talking about the game in the Penny Arcade news posts for quite a while now, and I have to admit I've only been marginally interested. While I am a big Penny Arcade fan from a considerable while back, from the way they were talking about it it sounded like the game was going to be very much oriented towards the console crowd. I have been very wary of console games, and aside from social games like Guitar Hero, few of the games that are geared towards consoles have much in the way of appeal to me. Console-style RPGs have especially always struck me as very weak compared to more traditional computer RPGs (Knights of the Old Republic notwithstanding).
However, one of the things Penny Arcade has in spades over most webcomics is Tycho's sublime writing. Granted, the comics can be a bit...well, juvenile at times, but behind the dick jokes, it's obvious that there's some real thought being put into it. And, to be perfectly honest, I'm a sucker for good writing in a game. So, Thursday, I downloaded the demo of the first episode from Greenhouse, and played it through. I wasn't sure about it at first; the combat mechanics are very similar to Japanese console RPGs, and at the beginning, it seemed a bit overstuffed with the crate syndrome, both of which are warning signs to me. However, the writing was pretty much what I expected, and the plot was intriguing enough to pull me in. I bought the full game that night and ended up playing until 0100, which was considerably later than I really wanted to.
Needless to say, I thought the game was pretty good, though I do think it was a little short; it took me about six or seven hours to play through from start to finish, which is a bit short of what I expected for $20. The art style is very cool; it reminds me a lot of a cross between Psychonauts (which is awesome) and the Curse of Monkey Island (also awesome), with of course a heavy amount of Penny Arcade thrown in. Combat is a bit difficult to get the hang of at first, at least if, like me, you haven't played a lot of console RPGs, and the difficulty takes a considerable jump upwards after the tutorial section, which you may not be prepared for. However, you never get totally screwed for losing a fight, so if it takes a few tries to get the hang of it, don't worry too much.
The basic game consists of you solving "cases" with the Startling Developments Detective Agency, which is to say Tycho and Gabe, in a sort of steampunk/pulp/Lovecraftian setting, of course with the requisite Penny Arcade bizarreness mixed in (the two main plots involve a giant Fruit Fucker terrorizing the city and a diabolical cult of mimes). You, along with Tycho and Gabe, handle a bunch of these cases (or quests, if you prefer), some related to the main plots and some not, while fighting a variety of enemies, including anthropomorphic trash cans, villainous barbershop quartets, and hobos, and receiving help from some familiar characters. On the surface, these aren't really that much more than the usual "kill X numbers of bad guys" or "bring me the MacGuffin" style chores that have been the hallmark of RPGs since time immemorial, and there's not usually that much nuance to what you have to do (part of its console-style heritage, I suspect). However, as always, the devil is in the details, and Tycho's writing perfectly translates the Penny Arcade-style humor to what these quests are and how you go about them, putting the writing on a level near Psychonauts, though I will admit it is not nearly as family-friendly. If you don't want your kids reading Penny Arcade, don't let them play this game either.
If you like Penny Arcade, and you're reasonably okay with console RPGs, this game is definitely worth picking up, assuming you can accept the relatively few number of gameplay hours for the price. Unlike Portal, which was similarly short in length, it doesn't have a whole lot of replay value that I can see, unless there some subquests you missed on your first play-through. There's not a lot of different ways to solve the puzzles, and your character building is purely cosmetic (and at least for the female characters, pretty limited), so once you play through it once there's not a lot more to it. If you're kind of iffy on the price, I suspect once the rest of the episodes come out, the whole package will be offered for a lower price ($40 for 3 episodes, or something similar), at which point you might feel better about it.
However, one of the things Penny Arcade has in spades over most webcomics is Tycho's sublime writing. Granted, the comics can be a bit...well, juvenile at times, but behind the dick jokes, it's obvious that there's some real thought being put into it. And, to be perfectly honest, I'm a sucker for good writing in a game. So, Thursday, I downloaded the demo of the first episode from Greenhouse, and played it through. I wasn't sure about it at first; the combat mechanics are very similar to Japanese console RPGs, and at the beginning, it seemed a bit overstuffed with the crate syndrome, both of which are warning signs to me. However, the writing was pretty much what I expected, and the plot was intriguing enough to pull me in. I bought the full game that night and ended up playing until 0100, which was considerably later than I really wanted to.
Needless to say, I thought the game was pretty good, though I do think it was a little short; it took me about six or seven hours to play through from start to finish, which is a bit short of what I expected for $20. The art style is very cool; it reminds me a lot of a cross between Psychonauts (which is awesome) and the Curse of Monkey Island (also awesome), with of course a heavy amount of Penny Arcade thrown in. Combat is a bit difficult to get the hang of at first, at least if, like me, you haven't played a lot of console RPGs, and the difficulty takes a considerable jump upwards after the tutorial section, which you may not be prepared for. However, you never get totally screwed for losing a fight, so if it takes a few tries to get the hang of it, don't worry too much.
The basic game consists of you solving "cases" with the Startling Developments Detective Agency, which is to say Tycho and Gabe, in a sort of steampunk/pulp/Lovecraftian setting, of course with the requisite Penny Arcade bizarreness mixed in (the two main plots involve a giant Fruit Fucker terrorizing the city and a diabolical cult of mimes). You, along with Tycho and Gabe, handle a bunch of these cases (or quests, if you prefer), some related to the main plots and some not, while fighting a variety of enemies, including anthropomorphic trash cans, villainous barbershop quartets, and hobos, and receiving help from some familiar characters. On the surface, these aren't really that much more than the usual "kill X numbers of bad guys" or "bring me the MacGuffin" style chores that have been the hallmark of RPGs since time immemorial, and there's not usually that much nuance to what you have to do (part of its console-style heritage, I suspect). However, as always, the devil is in the details, and Tycho's writing perfectly translates the Penny Arcade-style humor to what these quests are and how you go about them, putting the writing on a level near Psychonauts, though I will admit it is not nearly as family-friendly. If you don't want your kids reading Penny Arcade, don't let them play this game either.
If you like Penny Arcade, and you're reasonably okay with console RPGs, this game is definitely worth picking up, assuming you can accept the relatively few number of gameplay hours for the price. Unlike Portal, which was similarly short in length, it doesn't have a whole lot of replay value that I can see, unless there some subquests you missed on your first play-through. There's not a lot of different ways to solve the puzzles, and your character building is purely cosmetic (and at least for the female characters, pretty limited), so once you play through it once there's not a lot more to it. If you're kind of iffy on the price, I suspect once the rest of the episodes come out, the whole package will be offered for a lower price ($40 for 3 episodes, or something similar), at which point you might feel better about it.
Categories
From the Web , Games , Games0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.wraithwerks.net/mt/mt-tb.cgi/63
A great review. I'm also a big fan of Penny Arcade, and had this overwhelming sense of shark jumping when I heard about this game. You may have convinced me to spend my hard earned $20.
It's definitely not a shark jump -- despite its flaws, it's a good game. As I said, the only big concern I can see people having is that it's pretty short for $20.
Part of it is that I think Tycho and Gabe have a deep appreciation for the old school LucasArts games like Monkey Island and Full Throttle and the like, and Tycho is a good enough writer that he can pull off a good imitation while putting his own spin on it. Writing like that is hard to come by these days, when for most people, aside from a handful of companies, that comes as a secondary concern. When one of the primary people behind the game can basically say "this is a priority, and I'm going to devote the time and energy to make sure that it is up to my personal standards before it goes out the door," it makes a big difference. I suspect this is also why Psychonauts was so good too.