![]() ![]() It’s overkill to a degree, especially considering the game can be completed without much more than indifferent attention paid to your bustling character and inventory screens. There’s also armour, helmets, amulets, boots, charms and a whole host of ancillary bric-a-brac to assist DeathSpank on his ever-increasing roster of quests, sub-quests and other distractions. ![]() ![]() An axe imbued with fire magic will obviously do little to deter a demonic imp, for instance, while its icy equivalent will obviously fare much better at dispensing the fiery critters. However, what elevates DeathSpank above other games that solely rely on such taxing repetitiveness is its resplendent presentation of both world and character design, the near-perfect delivery of its signature comedy aspects and the fact that, niggling gripes aside, it wholeheartedly delivers in the fun department.Ĭombat is handled by mapping numerous weapons DeathSpank can both purchase and acquire through defeating enemies to each of the controller’s face-buttons with ranged attacks covered through the use of our hero’s trusty crossbow, an infinitely replenishing tool for keeping the likes of inquisitive Greems at bay. For make no mistake about it, DeathSpank is unashamedly a quest-grind, the incessant and often repetitive find-and-retrieve structure clearly the backbone of the game’s core mechanic. The nonsensical plot (DeathSpank wants to get his hands on an infamous trinket known as The Artifact for reasons probably best known to DeathSpank) suitably sets up its titular self-declared champion as he traverses a fantastical world inhabited by a typical cast of destitute folk requiring assistance and adversaries in dire need of vanquishing. Succinctly, DeathSpank is a comical and colourful Diablo clone, with liberal dashes of its own hack’n’slash button-bashing and role-playing lite flavours peppered throughout. Luckily, it also has one of gaming’s stalwart witty writers, Ron Gilbert, at its sturdy helm the humour and delivery from arguably Gilbert’s most beloved series, Monkey Island, evident throughout this quirky tale of demon poop, needy orphans and disproportionately wise-cracking heroes. Hothead’s DeathSpank – its very title instantly and proudly declaring a sincere case of irreverence and toilet humour – would therefore look to have its job cut out for it. In other words: you’re intentionally making things hard for yourself from the offset. In a medium where narrative is routinely a secondary (and sometimes tertiary) afterthought, choosing to willingly infuse your title with a healthy dose of the funnies is tantamount to turning up drunk for a blind date. There’s a reason why gaming’s comedy sub-genre is regarded as a dangerous and untapped vein, a test most developers would just rather not take. ![]()
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