In Deathspank, you’ll be spending most of the time dispensing “justice” and being “heroic”, because those are the favourite words of the titular protagonist. Justice, you will find, is all about balance. It does not discriminate, be it merciless orques, undead skeletons, dragons that swallow felt salesmen, sabertoothed donkeys, smelly orphans, or unicorns.
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Incidentally, did you know that unicorns only poop twice in their entire lifetime? The world of Deathspank is outstanding, both in its unique, colourful, cartoonish 2D cut-outs filling a 3D space, as well as the quirky people and creatures that populate it. In Deathspank, you’ll find that there are two kinds of chicken – the “stoopid” kind and the vicious kind. You’ll never question why you find ice cream bars in a demonic cave, and its perfectly normal that your nemesis, Lord Von Prong, will not rest until he has acquired not only the most powerful artefact in the world know as the artefact, but also Deathspank’s purple thong. In all these and more lies the genius of this game.
The man behind the game, Ron Gilbert, calls it Monkey Island-meets-Diablo. It’s a little far-fetched because from a gameplay perspective, it does not offer the depth of either. Instead, Deathspank stands out by being a parody of the whole RPG genre. Side quests are referred to as side quests, you run around doing quests for a grumpy old retired hero so he can close out his quest log before he dies, and you’ll even run into a couple of World of Warcraft rejects. Your own quest log is divided (literally) between important and unimportant things that you need to do.
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The hilarity extends to the dialogue as well, and there are many genuine laugh-out-loud moments throughout the game. In fact, I pushed on through the 100-plus main quests and side quests for the riotous interactions between Deathspank and the many NPCs of the game world. Talking any more of it would be spoiling the experience, but rest assured that this game is worth the price of admission for its conversations alone.
The humour and the odd puzzles thrown in are the Monkey Island influence on the game. The gameplay itself heavily inspired from Diablo. It follows the typical Action RPG formula of hacking away at lots of monsters, levelling up, and finding loot and armour to better equip yourself. As you level up, you get one skill point per level to allocate between six different tracks called “hero cards”. It’s hardly deep, and as you level up, you’ll be able to invest in pretty much every hero card, leaving little scope for variation in character development.
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The combat, however, is deeper than it seems. It would be unfair to call it a button-masher, even though you can get away with that initially. But as you encounter higher level enemies, blocking will become necessary. The four face buttons can be assigned to four different weapons that range between swords, cleavers, axes, crossbows, hammers and metallic fists. Apart from the standard RPG fare of featuring elemental damage in weapons, Deathspank can literally dispense “justice”, a special attack linked to most weapons that can be used once the justice meter is filled by killing enemies.
To make things even more interesting, certain pairs of weapons used in tandem for justice unleashes an elemental special attack. On top of all this, there are consumables, both offensive and defensive. All this, put together with a control scheme that has been mapped exceptionally well for the point-and-click gameplay style on consoles, makes Deathspank very robust in its action gameplay.
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If you prefer dispensing justice in a pair, the game features an offline cooperative mode, where a second player can drop in at any time as Deathspank’s sidekick – Sparkles the Wizard. However, the game takes the sidekick part a little too seriously. The second player only exists to support Deathspank, with no experience bar or inventory of his own. All experience or loot collected by Sparkles goes in the kitty of Deathspank. He also features a fixed move set, including a couple of basic attack spells, healing, creating a doppelganger, and teleporting next to Deathspank. There’s absolutely no incentive for the second player to join in, and unless you have a younger brother you can bully around, I don’t see any volunteers for the co-op mode.
Conclusion
At 8-10 hours of gameplay, Deathspank offers more content than many full retail releases these days at one-fourth the price. While its RPG elements are sparse, and the side quests can get a little repetitive, it features some beautiful art, satisfying gameplay, and probably the best humour I’ve seen in a video game this year. So what are you waiting for? There are orphans who need saving. It’s the heroic thing to do; even if they stink!
(+) The funniest game to have come out this year
(+) Satisfying combat
(+) Lots of variety in weapons and armour
(+) Unique, colourful and beautiful art style
(-) Shallow RPG elements
(-) Lack of variety in side quests
(-) Uninteresting cooperative mode
Title: Deathspank
Developer/Publisher: Hothead Games/EA
Genre: Action RPG
Rating: 12
Platforms: PS3/PSN ($14.99), Xbox LIVE Arcade (1,200 MS Points)
Reviewed on: PS3
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