Well, i'd like to start off with an apology: It's been a couple of years since I last reviewed a game so i'm probably gonna be a little bit rusty, so any feedback will be really appreciated.
As the name suggests this is the first game in a series of Xbox live arcade games from the creators of Penny Arcade. It is a turn based RPG mixed in with a detective "Solve the Cases" game and it has been pulled off remarkably well. The game starts off with a really nice character creation screen, which is pretty impressive for a live arcade game as it is in cartoony 3D. You can alter the face, hairstyle and hair colour and you can also choose clothes and specify their colour too. Cutscenes in the game are in 2D and are done in a comic book panels style. When your character is in one of these cutscenes your 3D character design is translated into a 2D version which is a nice touch.
Okay, now on to the actual game. It starts off with an etherial voice chatting to you as you stand in your garden. He natters on for a while before accusing you of having an untidy garden. He orders you to rake up the leaves, but as you do so a giant robot stands on your house! Before you know it the robot has trundled down the street and is being chased by two guys. You chase them down the road to try and get a handle on what just happened. As you catch up with the two guys you find out their names are Tycho and Gabe(the penny arcade characters). They run a detective agency that specialises in abnormal goings on and the banishing of evil(Gabe fought with the devil). And so your quest to track down the giant robot and look for a new place to live begins.
Gameplay 8/10: As I already mentioned the game is split into two genres; first there is the RPG element and secondly a detective-style element.
The RPG element consists of turn based combat, based on action bars. Each character has a speed stat, which determines how fast that character's action bars fill. Each character has 3 action bars; one for items, one for basic attacks and one for special attacks, which fill up one at a time in that order. There are various elements of the battle system, however, that add some welcome complexity to the game. When an enemy attacks, its health bar will briefly flash: A quick pull of the left or right trigger when you see this flash allows you to block the attack and possibly counter it. Special moves also add complexity as they require you to perform certain high speed actions such as timed button pressing and dance mat-style directional inputs, the relative success of which determines the effectiveness of your attack. Yet another feature of the battles is the overkill system. If you kill an enemy using a character's special attack then that character will gain an overkill. Each overkill a character gets permanently adds one point to their attack stat. The whole battle system is incredibly interactive in a way that I call "Paper Mario Style". I could go into even more depth about weapon upgrading and cumulative hit bonuses but i think you get the gist of the battle element by now
.
The detective aspect of the game is much simpler and never hugely puzzling but it provides the storyline and is always entertaining. One example is you have to win tokens playing minigames such as the darts game aptly named 'flying pricks', then using the tokens to by a model ferris wheel, which you then give to a hobo to urinate on. The game is crammed full of humor and innuendo and is guaranteed to keep you entertained.
Graphics 10/10: Considering that this is a live arcade game of ~150Mb i was pleasently surprised by the graphics. It's all smooth and the character models look very good and detailed. There are no aukward pointy corners or pixelated edges in sight. The comic-style cutscenes and conversation screens also look very nice and well drawn, as you'd expect from the makers of an online comic. One thing that also really impressed me is the exceptionally high quality of the animation in the game. Everything flows smoothly and without fault. All in all it has graphics to be proud of.
Sound 9/10: I was again very impressed by the sounds that emminated from my speakers. I do have to admit that this was helped by the surround sound system my 360 is hooked up to, but never the less it is still rather impressive. There is a lot of welcome background noise such as the occasional barking dog. Although the number of soundtracks is somewhat limited, what there is is very appropriate to the style of the game and only adds to the experience.
Overall 7/10: Now you may have noticed that so far i have had nothing but positive things to say about this game, so why the mediocre overall score? Well there are a few rather important flaws in this game that unfortunately drag down the game's score. Firstly this is a turn based RPG at heart and, usually there is a big emphasis on leveling up your characters. This is where the game stumbles. One thing a lot of people love about RPGs is that if you put the effort into training up characters then you are rewarded with easier fights due to having stronger characters. Unfortunately there are a set number of enemies in this game and you basically have to fight practically every single one to finish the game. This pretty much guarantees that you will be at level 15(the maximum level) when you get to the final boss. In this way I found that the freedom that usually comes hand in hand with RPGs is unfortunately on holiday somewhere remote and unreachable. It is so bad infact that there are only about 4 battles in the entire game that you are actually able to avoid.
My other complaint is with the length of the game. Episodic content seems to be the in thing at the minute and you accept that they will be shorter due to the tradeoff that episodic content can be released much quicker. However, after finishing the game in about 6 hours first time round and in about 5 hours second time round, I couldn't help but feel that I had been somewhat ripped off, mainly due to the fact that this game costs a whopping 1600 microsoft points which is almost £15 or $30!!!
All i can really say in conclusion is that, if the price doesn't bother you then go for it because it is a high quality and enjoyable game, but if you are looking for value for money then i'd probably recommend Uno.
Anyway, money no object I would say Buy it!!
Happy Gaming.
Bob
As the name suggests this is the first game in a series of Xbox live arcade games from the creators of Penny Arcade. It is a turn based RPG mixed in with a detective "Solve the Cases" game and it has been pulled off remarkably well. The game starts off with a really nice character creation screen, which is pretty impressive for a live arcade game as it is in cartoony 3D. You can alter the face, hairstyle and hair colour and you can also choose clothes and specify their colour too. Cutscenes in the game are in 2D and are done in a comic book panels style. When your character is in one of these cutscenes your 3D character design is translated into a 2D version which is a nice touch.
Okay, now on to the actual game. It starts off with an etherial voice chatting to you as you stand in your garden. He natters on for a while before accusing you of having an untidy garden. He orders you to rake up the leaves, but as you do so a giant robot stands on your house! Before you know it the robot has trundled down the street and is being chased by two guys. You chase them down the road to try and get a handle on what just happened. As you catch up with the two guys you find out their names are Tycho and Gabe(the penny arcade characters). They run a detective agency that specialises in abnormal goings on and the banishing of evil(Gabe fought with the devil). And so your quest to track down the giant robot and look for a new place to live begins.
Gameplay 8/10: As I already mentioned the game is split into two genres; first there is the RPG element and secondly a detective-style element.
The RPG element consists of turn based combat, based on action bars. Each character has a speed stat, which determines how fast that character's action bars fill. Each character has 3 action bars; one for items, one for basic attacks and one for special attacks, which fill up one at a time in that order. There are various elements of the battle system, however, that add some welcome complexity to the game. When an enemy attacks, its health bar will briefly flash: A quick pull of the left or right trigger when you see this flash allows you to block the attack and possibly counter it. Special moves also add complexity as they require you to perform certain high speed actions such as timed button pressing and dance mat-style directional inputs, the relative success of which determines the effectiveness of your attack. Yet another feature of the battles is the overkill system. If you kill an enemy using a character's special attack then that character will gain an overkill. Each overkill a character gets permanently adds one point to their attack stat. The whole battle system is incredibly interactive in a way that I call "Paper Mario Style". I could go into even more depth about weapon upgrading and cumulative hit bonuses but i think you get the gist of the battle element by now
.The detective aspect of the game is much simpler and never hugely puzzling but it provides the storyline and is always entertaining. One example is you have to win tokens playing minigames such as the darts game aptly named 'flying pricks', then using the tokens to by a model ferris wheel, which you then give to a hobo to urinate on. The game is crammed full of humor and innuendo and is guaranteed to keep you entertained.
Graphics 10/10: Considering that this is a live arcade game of ~150Mb i was pleasently surprised by the graphics. It's all smooth and the character models look very good and detailed. There are no aukward pointy corners or pixelated edges in sight. The comic-style cutscenes and conversation screens also look very nice and well drawn, as you'd expect from the makers of an online comic. One thing that also really impressed me is the exceptionally high quality of the animation in the game. Everything flows smoothly and without fault. All in all it has graphics to be proud of.
Sound 9/10: I was again very impressed by the sounds that emminated from my speakers. I do have to admit that this was helped by the surround sound system my 360 is hooked up to, but never the less it is still rather impressive. There is a lot of welcome background noise such as the occasional barking dog. Although the number of soundtracks is somewhat limited, what there is is very appropriate to the style of the game and only adds to the experience.
Overall 7/10: Now you may have noticed that so far i have had nothing but positive things to say about this game, so why the mediocre overall score? Well there are a few rather important flaws in this game that unfortunately drag down the game's score. Firstly this is a turn based RPG at heart and, usually there is a big emphasis on leveling up your characters. This is where the game stumbles. One thing a lot of people love about RPGs is that if you put the effort into training up characters then you are rewarded with easier fights due to having stronger characters. Unfortunately there are a set number of enemies in this game and you basically have to fight practically every single one to finish the game. This pretty much guarantees that you will be at level 15(the maximum level) when you get to the final boss. In this way I found that the freedom that usually comes hand in hand with RPGs is unfortunately on holiday somewhere remote and unreachable. It is so bad infact that there are only about 4 battles in the entire game that you are actually able to avoid.
My other complaint is with the length of the game. Episodic content seems to be the in thing at the minute and you accept that they will be shorter due to the tradeoff that episodic content can be released much quicker. However, after finishing the game in about 6 hours first time round and in about 5 hours second time round, I couldn't help but feel that I had been somewhat ripped off, mainly due to the fact that this game costs a whopping 1600 microsoft points which is almost £15 or $30!!!
All i can really say in conclusion is that, if the price doesn't bother you then go for it because it is a high quality and enjoyable game, but if you are looking for value for money then i'd probably recommend Uno.
Anyway, money no object I would say Buy it!!
Happy Gaming.
Bob