DeathSpank

[elmuerte]

so... no question about a PC release.

That must mean a PC release is pending. Woohoo..

[F4T C4T]

I played a load over the weekend and it's sucked me in. It took a while but the combat actually has a lot more to it than it first appears if a little limited in areas. I'm enjoying the various power ups and weapons but I haven't quite figured out the combo multiplier yet.

The world's really nice and stylized and the music and look combined remind me a lot of Pyschonauts. The areas are pretty varied and so are the enemies (I'm currently battling Bearalopes and Kangamoos) and the quests are most of the time amusing in some way and on occasion laugh out loud funny. I thought Deathspanks voice and the whole cartoon feel might annoy me after a while but it's has actually grown on me. The adventure puzzle bits are nice too if slightly under-used.

It's all a bit of silly fun really and just what I need after playing a bunch of more serious story-based games.

One more thing in case people want to know: the Co-op feels a bit tacked on. It's OK if you think of it as a bonus addition (I didn't realise you could until it I got in the game) but there's no choice of weapons, armor or items etc for the 2nd player and it left my girlfriend feeling a bit left out as the main player has to do all the interactions. Not a major disaster but could have been better.

I enjoyed the interview on Gamasutra as well, cheers Chris!

[syntheticgerbil]

Okay so I played about 8 hours of this last weekend finally. I'm really enjoying myself for the most part. It can get kind of dull and repetitive, but I'm actually not that far yet, just branching out around Pluckmuckel. I met a demon in the second cave who is way too hard for me. It seems like a huge game for the $15 price tag.

I'm liking the conversational stuff, but sometimes some characters can get a little too long. It depends. I think it's a very interesting mix overall with the hack and slash type stuff and figuring out small adventure game type puzzles.

Really the only thing I think this game is missing is showing different facial expressions for certain major characters when they are talking to you. It just helps mix things up a bit.

Also does anyone playing know how these runestone type abilities to work? Maybe I don't have the right weapons yet, but I'm pretty sure I do. I just press two buttons at once right? I have to get the runestone first as well right?

Also does anyone have any idea if it's possible some chests cannot be opened? I seem to always never have enough gold keys or they are not near anyone, so many chests get left unopened and by the time I get a key, it is full of stuff I've already leveled pass the optimal usage of.

Why do ghosts die from poison as well? I don't get it. I just started beating them with my poison stick, since nothing else worked and it was the only thing that killed them. The game didn't talk about it at all nor ever hint what I was supposed to do about ghosts. I also don't understand these undeath weapons. The weren't effective on ghosts at all.

Also running around and dodging enemies so that you can finish eating your food during battle is one of the most hilarious game functions I've ever seen.

[Wurtsi]

Okay so I played about 8 hours of this last weekend finally -- but I'm actually not that far yet, just branching out around Pluckmuckel.

What the hell? What game are you playing, I finished the damn thing with all the side quests in under 400 minutes (that's less than 7 hours). At least that's what the game told me.

Also running around and dodging enemies so that you can finish eating your food during battle is one of the most hilarious game functions I've ever seen.

Yes, I loved that too

[syntheticgerbil]

What the hell? What game are you playing, I finished the damn thing with all the side quests in under 400 minutes (that's less than 7 hours). At least that's what the game told me.

Maybe it was six hours. I'd have to check. I have this nasty habit of killing the same enemies over and over if I walk by them, then exhausting every bit of conversation with everyone. I must have spent an hour messing around with Eubrick, the taco lady, and the Mayor.

I'm already on level 12 at Pluckmuckel, which is only the second part of the game. I guess I'm getting ahead of myself because i just saw the max was level 20.

[syntheticgerbil]

Okay, I finished this game last weekend to full or near completion. I'm not sure, there is not definite guide with the highest numbers. I got to level 20 and I'm pretty sure I've finished all quests. I think I should have all runestones, but I'm missing the lightning rod enhancement one, which was apparently supposed to be in a chest in a swamp that I had already opened. Maybe I always had the power and the runestone didn't save in my inventory? I read a Hothead employee somewhere saying that this was a bug for some runestones. Also the 'K' runestone is missing from the game apparently.

This game was alright, above average at least, but yeah, I didn't really see Ron flexing his chops in much of anything other than dialogue and weird characters characters, which were great. It may have been nice if every character wasn't a complete punchline waiting to happen, similar to Monkey Island, but I guess Deathspank himself is so ridiculous it would be impossible. There were some majorly funny times (especially this certain step before the end), but sometimes it got a bit exhausting.

Puzzles were all shallow really. The one puzzle you can solve two clever ways is before you finish the first area, and the only adventurey curve ball type puzzle involves getting the taco, as shown in the demonstration videos. After that, the rest of the game is fetching to and fro. The part with the tree that gives you like 7 sidequests was humorous I suppose, but it was the same exact tiny quest every time.

Combat was fine. It could tend to get boring, but I suppose that's how all hack and slash type games are. Really what kept it going was just the usual excitement towards your next weapon/upgrade/armor and then using that to obliterate enemies that were once hard. My girlfriend was playing Sparkles for about 30 minutes at one point, but quickly became bored when she discovered exactly how limited her powers were. Oh well.

Also, I don't know if the game was this unbalanced for others, but early on, I couldn't afford much of anything. Useful things like potions could completely empty my wallet, so I just avoided buying anything unless it were puzzle related. More than halfway through the game, I had amassed enough money where I could just buy things at my leisure, but then I was quickly running out of things to buy. The enticing reward for saving the orphans became pitiful compared to how rich I had become in the meantime of completing the game.

Also, I guess the ending just completely sucks since I knew beforehand that Ron Gilbert quit Hothead. The game is left on a complete open cliffhanger, like you are going to be doing more questing in later games. The story of Deathspank, his thong, and Sandy was not even explained within the game. Why go through all the trouble to do this when there is not going to be a sequel (or an episodic series)? I found that pretty cheap on the designers part. The ending just made no sense and was less than satisfying.

What's up with the "Fromage" sign? Why did the game turn into a World War setting? Why did the money change from gold to cash upon going back into the game? I just don't find it as cute as maybe the designers thought it would be.

Hopefully some of that will carry over into DLC, because the game just feels unfinished overall and some stuff in ealier gameplay videos was cut. There's also the case of the map being misleading and taking up maybe half the space that was available in the end. It seemed to suffer similar to Brutal Legend in making you want more and at some point make you think there actually is more, only to find out the game is over. I guess it was more upsetting in Brutal Legend because it had characters you could actually care about.

Not that the small world size is a bad thing at all, since the game was very long and open for $15. I get the feeling early on, Hothead couldn't decide how big Deathspank really should be and so now it's stuck uncomfortably between the usual length and scope of a download game versus a full on $60 game.

So yeah, the game is definitely worth the money. It was fun and there are a lot of laughs to be gleaned out of it. I guess I just wish it were more fun in the end.

One final note: Did anyone else have a problem with killing so many animals? I mean, chickens are a staple in this game typed, but DeathSpank eventually has you slaughtering almost everything in the animal kingdom (or some combination) by the end. I guess the Wizard mixing animals automatically makes them bad, but in no way did anything actually look threatening, nor was it handled in much of a stylized or humorous way like the Twisted Pixel games. They just looked like cute cartoon animals or at worst Farside characters. At one point, I was just killing masses of turtles on a beach. It was completely lazy. There was nothing scary or threatening about these turtles, besides that they just attack you if you get to close. However, I have no problem with fucking up Unicorns.

Edited November 24, 2010 by syntheticgerbil

[Kolzig]

Just read Remo's month old interview with Ron Gilbert from Gamasutra.

Now I really want to play this, but then I noticed that there are still no news about the PC release...

[juv3nal]

"developed in parallel" sequel on the way.

[elmuerte]

Thongs of Virtue will sell for the same price as the original, $15 on PSN or XBLA. Millar acknowledged that Hothead is "seeing some demand" for a PC version, a natural given DeathSpank's PC adventure-game and Diablo roots, but he said Hothead is focused on the two consoles it is supporting for the series. A PC release and any third game in the series are hypothetical, to be released if the gaming market demands them.

Some demand!?

So I guess I need to demand more?

[MrHoatzin]

Some demand!?

So I guess I need to demand more?

Where does one go to some demand some more and some more noticeably?

[syntheticgerbil]

I'm betting this sequel will have the more adventurey and well rounded bits that weren't really in the first one. This is also where the pirate parts went to.

This should be fun. I think my forum review may have come off a little bit too negative, but I'm betting this sequel will be great and have everything I already wanted. That also explains that funky ending. I don't think this is wishful thinking, I'm sure this is will be good and I'm excited.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Of course: "That creation schedule doesn't mean that the new game could incorporate much of the fan feedback toward the first one, though. Thongs of Virtue won't reflect any major changes demanded by the DeathSpank public."

Crazy that they kept it secret!

[thorn]

So Deathspank has actually ended up as an episodic game? How odd.

[syntheticgerbil]

Of course: "That creation schedule doesn't mean that the new game could incorporate much of the fan feedback toward the first one, though. Thongs of Virtue won't reflect any major changes demanded by the DeathSpank public."

Crazy that they kept it secret!

It was pretty sneaky. I just thought they scrapped a bunch of stuff that was in trailers.

The thing I'm wondering though is, the second half of the map unused in the first game is almost obviously reserved for everything in the second game... Does this mean you can traverse the area of the first game in the second or will that be off limits and blank?

Maybe the two games will work together?

[mikemariano]

Maybe the two games will work together?

OMG

[syntheticgerbil]

Haha, if only.

[Kolzig]

So no PC version of the main game or this speedy sequel, no Ron anymore at Hothead and basically this sounds like it's Deathspank 1.5 consisting of the stuff they cut from the first release.

Maybe in this one you can actually see the weapons on Deathspank's back, I read that in Ron's blog that it was apparently removed after he left Hothead. I wonder what else they removed after he left?

I'm pretty sure at this point that there will be no PC release. Even the guy says that they are not focusing on PC, the main platforms are Xbox and Playstation. That I find very disappointing as for the past few years I've been hoping quite a lot to play Ron Gilbert's new game on Steam.

The game was originally supposed to be episodic so this kind of goes in that plan.

They propably have some original Hothead ideas there, like apparently adding guns to a hack'n slash game. The basic plot setting for the sequel "episode" seems to be a cheap LotR joke.

Maybe the two games will work together?

The article says:"Players won't bring their progress from the first game. Deathspank sequel players start leveling their hero up from scratch."

[syntheticgerbil]

So no PC version of the main game or this speedy sequel, no Ron anymore at Hothead and basically this sounds like it's Deathspank 1.5 consisting of the stuff they cut from the first release.

It's seems like maybe they were making too big of a game all at once or had all of this stuff started for additional episodic content, but then realized it was too much and split it? It's pretty strange Ron Gilbert failed to mention this, but I guess it did make a nice surprise.

Maybe in this one you can actually see the weapons on Deathspank's back, I read that in Ron's blog that it was apparently removed after he left Hothead. I wonder what else they removed after he left?

I saw your comment on the recent Grumpy Gamer post. It seems like what you and the other guy are talking about might indicate there is more to Ron leaving and the games being released like this than we may ever know?

The article says:"Players won't bring their progress from the first game. Deathspank sequel players start leveling their hero up from scratch."

That's fine, I'm just going to be really annoyed when it's the same map except this time I can only traverse the other half.

[Kolzig]

http://www.hotheadgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=268&start=30#p1237

You could say that's an official answer.

[MrHoatzin]

"We are steadfast in our noncommittal to answering this question."

[Raff]

"fuck you No PC version"

"Follow us on Twitter anyway"

[mikemariano]

Steve Gaynor, if you're reading this thread, I hope you get some satisfaction from the fact that everyone is giving Hothead the same answer they gave you. It's nothing personal.

Is there anyone on this site that does have this game for the Xbox? How is the dialogue compared to the first game? Deathspank's conversations were broad and silly, but still a lot of fun. I don't know if that will continue.

[juv3nal]

Is there anyone on this site that does have this game for the Xbox? How is the dialogue compared to the first game? Deathspank's conversations were broad and silly, but still a lot of fun. I don't know if that will continue.

I have it for ps3. I'm not very far in though.

I read on the hothead forums that there's a gamebreaking bug further on and with Civ5 to occupy my time, I think I'm going to wait for a patch before continuing.

My initial impressions, such as they are, can be found in the first comment here. The dialogue seems very much in the same style as the first game.

I'm not 100% positive, but I pretty sure it's the same as the first one in terms of not being able to see weapons on his back.

There's a library in the first town which has a book in it called "The Secret of Monkey Island by Ron Gilbert" which is amusing, but I couldn't find any way to read the book once I had checked it out/put it in my inventory. Guess Deathspank is too concerned with vanquishing evil to be bothered reading.

[ThunderPeel2001]

So basically this is two halves of the same game, according to Ron. I'm really quite interested in getting to see the "whole arc" that he talks about really kicking in in Part 2. It's also interesting to note that the game's original message being reflected in the game's production with "biting irony". What could that mean?

Regardless of how Mr. Chris Remo insists I'm looking for something that isn't there, I'm still convinced Gilbert left Hothead for a (yet undisclosed) reason.

[Irishjohn]

So basically this is two halves of the same game, according to Ron. I'm really quite interested in getting to see the "whole arc" that he talks about really kicking in in Part 2. It's also interesting to note that the game's original message being reflected in the game's production with "biting irony". What could that mean?

Sounds cool to me. I enjoyed the first one a lot more than I thought. I want to get back and spam the attack button to get myself to level 20 on the first game and maybe I'll buy this new one in October (after pay day).