Penny-Arcade Adventures:On the Rain-slick Precipice of Darkness:Episode 1, known to the common man as “That Penny-Arcade game”, is out for PC and Xbox Live.
It is, in a word, pulpy.
In two words, thick pulp.
In yet more words, this is hyperfruit, a juiceless, rindless orange, composed entirely of flavorful flesh, magically held together by forces unknown, the essence of pulp.
It’s a good thing.
First and foremost, this is raw Penny-Arcade. For fans of the comic, it’s a gift, for those who’ve never enjoyed it, waterboarding may be a more enjoyable option. The writing, art, and attitude are pure PA, expanded to fit 5-6 hours of gameplay, instead of a typical three panels.
The game starts with a fairly weak character creation, though the designs which can come out of it are all appealing and fit well with the art style. The character you create is given a standard polygonal in-game representation, a 2d comic representation, and is represented just as you designed in the game’s 2d animated cutscenes. It’s a nice touch and helps t attach you to the game’s story quickly.
The art, as mentioned before, is pure penny-arcade, just…well, mostly 3d. The animations are fluid and the game really does looks like the panels just gained life, particularly the fruit fuckers. The backgrounds (like the comic, to be fair) are a bit bland at points, but what’s going on in the foreground takes over so well it’s easily forgotten. A bit more color would have been nice, considering the bright, crisply animated models of the PCs, NPCs, and evil mimes, still.
The sound is, well, sound. It doesn’t stand out, but it works. Punches, guns, mechanical hip thrusts, they sound fine, but the game wouldn’t lose anything muted. The only spoken dialog is that of the mysterious narrator who asks you not focus on who he is, but it’s quite entertaining. The rest is all text, and said text is hilarious. The dialog trees, descriptions of items, and events presented, sidesplitting. There is an annoyance that some points require pressing the action button multiple times to see all dialog or description on an item. Sometimes it’s fine, with random bystanders, sometimes you’re pushing the button to see an entire statement folded out into three parts. There doesn’t seem to be a reason for it, just a lack of forethought.
The game’s combat mechanic is fun, though not spectacular by any means. It uses an active time battle sort of thing, where meters are filling in real time, and spent on an attack or item usage. Items are are nearly instantly ready. A little longer of a wait will ready the normal attack, and a longer wait will open up a special attack. The specials are very useful, but the charge time does leave one vulnerable. Fortunately enough, there’s a blocking system in game. Enemy attacks have a timing where the right trigger blocks. It may be a partial block, reducing damage by a reasonable percentage, full block(a very high percentage), or a counter-attack, which both totally negates the damage AND deals damage to the enemy. The results depend on the timing of the player, and it’s entirely possible to miss blocks for attempting them too early or too late.
Items drop constantly, and the game heavily limits the amounts carried by players. It really works to make people use items freely, instead of hording them. An average fight will drop a fuckton of useful items, and if one just happens to be low or out, somehow, of something, it’s possible to go back to anywhere you’ve been before, bust open some crates (it’s AMAZING how fast those are rebuilt and refilled), and generally be completely restocked on items which will fuck over one’s enemies. Plentiful items and a limited stock really do work in the game’s favor, especially as damage is healed between battles. No need to save healing items to not be too weak to handle the next fight. It keeps the game’s pace up and players feeling bold, instead of always worrying over the inventory.
Enemies have various strengths and weaknesses, either to distraction items, explosives, or damage types, general, providing some variety to the battle. Risk vs reward is definitely a factor too, since killing enemies with a fully charged special attack results in overkill, which adds a permanent bonus to a character’s damage stat, very important later in the game. On top if it, bonus characters are available, who charge their own timers during battles, starting with a cat, who either does 1 point of damage on his attack (but the time his attack takes allows for a strong timer build during the wait), or a truly devastating hairball; I only saw it once in the game myself, but it was awe-inspiring.
On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness gets 4.5 out of 5 canes. Very fun, great price, and very likely to get a replay or two. The writing is among the best PA has produced and the combat system is quite solid. For PA fans, it’s a must-have. Otherwise, well, try the demo out, and see how demolishing tiny robots with a rake suits you. The odds are quite well.
