Penny Arcade Adventures

Penny Arcade Adventures review.

by: William Jones

Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode One (XBLA, PC, MAC, Linux) [M]

Rating: Buy Now!

(Downloadable content rated on scale of: Buy Now, Maybe Later, Skip)

Price: 1600 Microsoft Points ($20)

Publisher: Hothead Games – Developer: Hothead Games

From the wordsmith and artist that brought the gaming world the Penny Arcade web comic, news site, children’s charity and Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle comes…(a mouthful)…Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode One.

For fans of the comic, the content of Rain-Slick Precipice will feel familiar, while for those just picking up on the unique humor, it may take a few minutes to realize why killing hobos, mimes and fruit-fucking robots is awesome.

The adventure RPG features a trio of characters—Tycho Brahe, John Gabriel, and a user-created character. The user-created character finds his house (or is it home?) destroyed by Fruit Fucker Prime, meets up with Tycho and Gabe, and investigates the increasingly strange situation. Along the way, the trio meets supporting characters with which fans of the series will be familiar. Three of those characters lend a helping hand with special and (in the case of T. Kemper) sometimes not-so-special attacks.

The gameplay is fairly standard turn-based, time-restricted RPG action, complete with stuff to collect, weapons and attacks to upgrade, special attacks and so on. The system is solid, though, and the different special attacks and timed blocks keep the action interesting and fast-paced.

It’s the humor that drives the game, however, and the Penny Arcade boys have crafted an inane story to drive the action. This is a game where a guy wants to pee on a 1/64th scale model of a Ferris wheel, players are tasked with finding invisible equipment for a mime and robots, yes, fuck fruit. What is especially cool about the whole affair is that the game is heavily text-based in its storytelling, which in some ways is a bummer that voices haven’t been created for these longtime characters, but most of it actually feels like the old text-only games of yore, when it used to be about entering the right commands. This system is 100 percent lenient, in comparison, but offers a similar effect.

All in all, Rain-Slick Precipice is a solid game with humor fans will love. And it does its job in keeping gamers eager for the next three episodes.

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