Penny Arcade: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode 2

If you liked the previous episode of Penny Arcade: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness then you will like this one, which means if you like funny games set in a steampunk-like 19th century fighting giant robots with fists, guns and hoes and has no replay value, then---yeah.

Compared to the previous incarnation of this game, this game has a lot more swearing. A lot of utterances of the word fuck. It also has slightly trickier puzzles, with one section involving the twisting of hexagonal pieces to make pathways through the brain to prevent insanity.

Like the previous incarnation of the game, it has your hapless custom character in search of a home, accompanying Gabe and Tycho in a fight against such foes as obnoxious lovers, rich people and fruit fucking robots.

It's certainly funny, with quests to obtain a million dollars so you can buy a bracelet and fights where your enemies hit you with such attacks like throwing a box of chocolates at you. I guess the only down part about it that it has the pitfall of any adventure-based game with humor attached to it in that it doesn't have much replay value at all. Sure, there's an option to play the game in "insane mode" for secret items and such, but really, when you go through it once and have heard all the jokes, there isn't much incentive to go through it again. Also, the quest should take you about ten hours to complete, so the game isn't very long to begin with.

It's available for PC, Mac, Linux and XBOX Live for $15. Pick it up if you want to be entertained for a short while.

Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People - Episode 2: Strong Badia The Free

For Wii and PC
Released in September 2008 by Telltale Games and Videlelectrix.

This second entry in the Homestar Runner-themed games comes in a month after the first which means it gets to the gamer at least 24 times faster than the Half-Life 2 Episodes of which Episode 3 should arrive sometime around 2012.

As in our review for Episode One of the Strong-Bad game, this is again a game that if you like the Homestar Runner cartoons, you'll like this, and if you don't like Homestar Runner cartoons, you might not like this.

This game is (surprise) again an adventure game. In my opinion, this episode presents a more compelling plot than the first episode. The King of Town has suddenly imposed a harsh tax on e-mails. Since this affects Strong Bad the most, and he isn't going to pay, he gets an explosive device fitted around his neck that will go off if he tries to leave his house. Of course, this leads to the first part of the adventure - trying to get out of your house without your head exploding. Once that is done, Strong Bad decides to rebel and form his own country, hence the title.

Everyone else decides to rebel too and pretty soon everyone has their own country, from Bubs' Concessionstan to Pompomarania. Strong Bad wants to unite these countries under his own flag and go after the King of Town. So, with a Maps and Minions board (A game not unlike RISK) for a map, he goes on a quest to conquer all, complete with a History-Channel like narration and grainy sepia-toned film to narrate successes in his endeavor.

It's got the usual good writing from the Brothers Chaps. Funny, clean, with pop culture references thrown in. For the Homsar fans (The incredibly strange man based off a typo) this episode contains a lot more Homsar and his floating strangeness. There's even a chance to bring him down to a sane level in the game for a brief time. Excitement abounds.

There's a few side games like before, like doing cave paintings of "Cave Girl Squad" and collecting the instruction manual for the Atari-like game Math Kickers Featuring the AlgeBros.

The graphics in this Episode are slightly improved. It's not saying much considering this is not meant to be something to run your graphics card into the ground, but you can tell they spiffied up the textures a bit and the animation seems a little smoother. There's a few glitches from time to time like the first episode, but nothing major.

The game itself is not too hard - the puzzles are relatively easy once you figure out the right interactions. Actually, I've found it to be slightly easier than the first episode, the only part that gets a little frustrating is the end game which actually involves a game and strategy and---thinking. Ergh. Why don't I just play Myst? From the 1990s? (It was a game involving puzzles)

Even with this little endgame of frustration, the game shouldn't take more than ten hours of play to complete. It's a good little funny game for the Wii, and considering a lot of what's been on the Wii lately has been utter crap, this might be one you want to pick up. Unless you have a PC. It's out for that as well. Then you may have to weigh your options a bit.

Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People - Episode 1: Homestar Ruiner

For Wii and PC
Released in August 2008 by Telltale Games and Videlelectrix.

Do you happen to remember the point-and-click style of adventure game with a comedy theme? You know, like Space Quest? No?

Well, okay, Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People is like one of those games you don't remember. This is Episode 1 of 5, and this game is $10, so in the end you will be paying something like $50 for a complete game. Thus it is in this age of buying games in pieces.

It helps if you happen to like Homestar Runner cartoons in order to like this game. You know, Homestar Runner, the cartoon that was wildly popular five years ago, now is merely just popular? Well, if the clean, pop-culture referencin' humor of the cartoons doesn't entertain you, then you will probably get no enjoyment out of this game.

This is an adventure game in which you play Strong Bad, with the objective of trying to ruin Homestar Runner's life as the title of this episode suggests. To do this you wander around the locales present in the Homestar Runner cartoon - Strong Bad's House, Bub's Concession Stand, Strongbadia, and so on, pointing and clicking your way through puzzles and through random non-puzzle related stuff, which almost always comes with some sort of joke to it.

Like, clicking on the Cheat gets you to say "Hey, look over there!" Then, of course, when the Cheat turns to look, you throw him in the dryer.

There are also little side-games to play too, like one can turn on the Atari-like console, and play "Snake Boxer" where you control an 8-bit boxer trying to fight snakes with his fists in a ring. There's also the ability to make your own "Teen Girl Squad" cartoons, which has the premise of you trying to make a cartoon in which all the Teens get horribly killed before the cartoon is over. You can also, at any time, take a screenshot using an interface that looks like you are using an early-model digital camera, then use Strong Bad's computer to e-mail the screenshot to your Wii friends.

As far as the concept of the game, it's nothing groundbreaking. However, the writing, done by the Brothers Chaps, who write the Homestar Runner Cartoons, makes this game entertaining. You go through the tutorial and you are treated to Strong Bad explaining how to use the simple controls for talking, using inventory, etc, except everyone in the tutorial is aware it is a tutorial. Like Strong Sad says "I told you that I didn't want to be in your tutorial, Strong Bad!" Then is forced to reading his "lines" for the tutorial, which he does in a very unenthusiastic way.

This Episode isn't that long, taking you about seven hours to complete if you just play through and don't click on random stuff or play any side games. Again, if you like the Homestar Runner cartoons, then you will probably want to play this game. Keep in mind that like most comedy related adventure games, there's not much replay value the second time through as you have heard all the jokes. It's up to you if you want to spend $10 on it now, or wait a few months to get all the episodes together for $50 as they will inevitably come together in one standard release.

The Stand-Up Comedy of Grand Theft Auto IV

Grand Theft Auto IV is the record-annihilating bestselling video game for the XBOX 360 and Playstation 3. In it, you can run over pedestrians with an ice-cream truck, throw grenades into Internet cafes, and watch stand-up comedy.

This is what this article will focus on - the stand up comedy. The least interesting of the above choices. Sure, there's been games with comedians in them, like Gallagher's Gallery, (which was neither stand-up or comedy) but I do not think there has ever been a game with stand-up comedy in it. My, the advancement of gaming technology. Revel in it. Revel.

So, let us examine the stand-up. You have comedy from the likes of Kat Williams to Ricky Gervais. Actually, just Kat Williams and Ricky Gervais. Not too many choices there, but a good range of demographic is covered, from pimp lover to comedy nerd. Perhaps in the future incarnations of the game one can see the likes of Maria Bamford and David Cross. Or more likely, charged ten dollars to download them into the game.



The stand-up comedy is performed at a comedy-club stereotype, the "Split Sides" comedy club. The outside of the club is pictured above. You can either go to the club itself in the game or occasionally catch the acts on television...also in-game.

I think this is the first video game in which which you can sit down at your television, playing a video game in which you are watching television. The mind reels.

When you are at the comedy club itself (in the game) one thing of note is that you can't actually interact with the club or the comics. You go to the club, and basically you are treated to a non-interactive cutscene rendered in the game engine.

This is a bit of a disappointment. Not that I would like to shoot Ricky Gervais or Kat Williams and hit them with a car in real life, but GTA IV is all about doing stuff in the game world you would never do in the real world, so it feels like you are getting cheated that you can't just walk in and blast a comic with a shotgun mid-act. Or blast an annoying audience member. Or set the bar on fire.

Perhaps there was an agreement with the comics that they would only appear in the game as long as you couldn't kill them. For that I say: give the comics guns. Does anyone not want to play a video game in which you can get into a gun battle with Ricky Gervais? I submit this question to you.

Okay, well, let us put hypotheticals aside and go to the presentation as is. You go to the club, the cutscene begins, and the comic comes out and does about ten minutes of stand up. Occasionally the camera cuts back to you, Nico, sitting at your table stone-faced. That part is actually amusing. The audience, being that it's essentially computer-animated canned-laughter does what canned laughter does and laughs like people have never laughed ever in recorded history.



Also, obviously a lot of work was done with motion capture to make the comedians move in a way that represents the actual comedian's movements themselves, but they still don't look quite right in the game engine. For example Kat Williams does a bit about listening to a song about "Hustling" and how that might make him move in places like, the supermarket. So he moves but it's like looking at a well-done marionette.



Ricky Gervais I have not seen do stand-up ever and after watching him do stand-up in game I still don't think I've done stand up. He's done brilliant work writing and performing in The Office and Extras, but here, just doing straight stand-up it is just weird. Especially with the LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE coming from the NOT REALLY AN AUDIENCE in reaction to his very dry humor. For instance, he talks about how he talks about how he was incensed that a cancer patient he was doing a benefit show for was still around years later. ENORMOUS LAUGHTER. Yeah.



Kat Williams is presented as the "local" so he mentions living in the city. Since the city is a facsimile of New York, one of his bits is about living in a studio apartment and how hard it is to move around. Again, the marionette factor kicks in with a bit like this, where you are distracted by the fake Kat Williams moving around in the game engine, trying to demonstrate how small his apartment is and not actually enjoying the physical comedy. It's unfortunate that a lot of his stand-up bits are physical in this sense.

Overall, the stand-up is a nice bonus feature to an already very fun game. It's a little odd in it's implementation, but then again, it's a bonus. You can always go back to killing hookers with shotguns at any time.