MadCap's Game Reviews - "DeathSpank"

Anyone who's ever read my blog knows that I'm a fan of medieval fantasy RPGs. In fact, I think it's safe to say that it's probably my favorite genre of gaming, thanks in no small part to the likes of Bioware and Bethesda. However, if you remember that I did actually review Cthulhu Saves the World and Rad Raygun, you'll also remember that I love deconstructions of the genre and comedic pokes at some of the more completely ridiculous aspects of them. And they do have completely ridiculous aspects to them. How exactly can a character carry enough weapons to re-wallpaper every room in every castle in the land with the blood of their enemies? How can the player just stand around for hours on end without eating or sleeping? Why exactly are these magical pants slightly better than these other magical pants?

DeathSpank is a game that understands the questions that are now simmering in your head because I just put them there. We are introduced straight away to DeathSpank a man who is what you'd get if you put Zap Brannigan, Bruce Campbell, and Sir Lancelot from Monty Python and the Holy Grail and threw them together in a blender, then froze what remained and smacked it against a wall a few times. It is clear right from the beginning that DeathSpank (and yes, stop laughing, that is his name) is very much of the alignment Lawful coconut and banana sandwich crazy.

He is the stereotypical Paladin type, as I mentioned before, but is very loud and boastful of his accomplishment of increasing bizarreness and the authenticity of which could be questioned highly. He's also "highly charismatic", always speaking in an over the top tone (like the aforementioned Zap) about justice and decency, has a chin one could probably grate cheese on (in the style of Bruce Campbell), and has a complete inability to refuse the call to do some good in the world whilst on his quest.  However, the game takes this as an opportunity to point out that the crazy man in the metal suit with a bunch of different weapons has a few screws loose.

"Ah ha! So this is a parody!" I hear you saying, and indeed it is, in the best way. Like Scream, it has moments of self-referential humor and pointing out how kind of nonsense or ridiculous a certain aspect of something is. DeathSpank himself gets a lot of this, being that he's several gold pieces shy of a full pouch and yet gets to be a walking death tornado whilst on his epic quest to...oh, right, I haven't gotten to the questline yet.

The quest involves DeathSpank, stalwart hero of the land, coming to the land of...well, a land...to seek a mystical artifact known only as "the Artifact". To do this, he must acquire the aid of a Demon Witch who locked it away behind a magic seal (that poor animal), that only she can break. The Witch can only do this with a series of items that must be procured and will no doubt be completely swamped very quickly by side quests given by NPCs as he travels along to complete that quest. As you would expect in such games, your journal will get full very, very quickly. This is largely due to the fact that DeathSpank will accept quests whether you want him to or not, but a large majority is optional. In fact, only a little over thirty are required to beat the main game.

There's also drop in-drop out co-op in the form of the wizard Sparkles, companion to DeathSpank. Unfortunately because my basement is fresh out of people I've kidnapped for harvested their organs on the black market, I didn't have a second body to hold a controller so if you want to dock points from me on that, go right ahead.

DeathSpank himself controls as you'd expect - direction stick to move and each of the letter keys are his attacks. You want to attack an enemy, you run up to them and press the button a melee weapon is assigned to 'til they die. You want to do a ranged attack, you run a little but of a distance away from them and luckily don't have to aim...though you can switch about which particular enemy you're aiming at with the other stick. Most of the time, however, you'll just want to level up your health when the opportunity arises and charge in as a melee fighter.

Why? Justice meter.

Yes, as DeathSpank is the personification of all that's good, righteous, and calorie-free, he has a mode where he is temporarily invincible and deals an insane amount of damage all over, which is particularly good for the flustercuck-y moments. When the bar at the bottom of the screen fills up to maximum, the aforementioned mode can be activated which is abundantly useful when facing a particularly nasty enemy or a crowd of enemies - such as the chickens that DeathSpank is sent to kill in the beginning for their lips.

Yes, chickens have lips. How else would they whistle?

There's also a lockpicking mechanic and by lockpicking mechanic I mean "DeathSpank walks up to it and the player presses a button when prompted and a few seconds of the sound of a wrench twisting some nuts and bolts later the chest opens". It's a nice change from, say, Skyrim's or Oblivion's lockpicking mini-games.

DeathSpank has a backpack in which he carries everything he can't bother to equip. It also comes with a grinder that can turn unwanted items into gold pieces, which is handy when you're stuck three levels down in a dungeon on a quest and have no outhouse in sight to fast-travel back to a shopkeeper...yes, the fast-travel system is through outhouses, ponder that for a moment. He can have up to four different weapons equipped at a time, all of which are binded to whatever button the player chooses for them.

There's no real strategy to them that I discovered, all do some sort of extra damage and so one would imagine the player would need a diverse assortment to content with the various creatures DeathSpank will come across. Not a bad plan, just keep doing that and upgrading to weapons that do more damage.

So, all in all, excellent game and one that made me laugh more than a few times at that. It might not be your thing if you don't enjoy well-done satire (in my opinion, at least), but if you don't mind something that can point and laugh at itself with decent combat, then DeathSpank is definitely a game for you.

DeathSpank is now available from Hothead Games and EA.

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