Review: Penny Arcade Adventures Episode 1

For those not in the know, Penny Arcade is the world’s most popular webcomic on all things gaming. Within the gaming community, Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins’ comic counterparts, Gabe and Tycho, are as recognizable as Master Chief or Mario.

What started as an every-other-day webcomic has grown into a massive business with an equally massive fan base. Over the years, Penny Arcade has evolved into selling clothing and books, created a wonderful charity called Child’s Play, and founded the annual publicly open gaming convention PAX. These feats are not too shabby for a webcomic whose punch line could be a simple F-bomb.

Outside Penny Arcade’s aforementioned contributions to the gaming industry, their biggest achievement is their skewed view toward said industry by bringing in their unbiased, fresh, and sometimes controversial opinions in every blog post. With almost every comic either about some game they had a problem with, or how ludicrous the video game industry can be, one would think that they would make their own game with elements that they enjoyed.

And so they did.

On top of being a mouthful to say, Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One marks Gabe and Tycho’s first foray into the pastime they so thoroughly enjoy. At first thought, one would think that a game based on the Penny Arcade comic would be that of a satire of the video game industry at large or revolve around the premise of the characters being self-aware and knowing they are in a video game. However, at its root, Penny Arcade Adventures is traditional on all accounts. That’s not to say the game is bad; in fact, it is the exact opposite.

Developed by indie game maker Hothead, the story takes place in a 1920s, H.P. Lovecraft-inspired world called New Arcadia, a place where evil mimes, villainous barbershop quartets, and fruit loving robots are the norm. Instead of playing as Gabe and Tycho, players build their own character through a simple creation process at the beginning of the game.

The game is split between 3D game play and 2D cut scenes, with the player’s created character modeled out in each respectively. The 2D cut scenes play out like a living comic book and are presented in a manner most suitable to the eyes: colorful and smooth.

Overall, the feel of the Penny Arcade characters translates well into 3D, with a handful of locations complimenting the art style. Speaking of locations, some would argue that the four areas in this game equal too few, but being an episodic game, I feel the amount of areas to explore was suitable, even if each setting was a tad small.

At first glance, one would think this game is set in the adventure genre due to its point-and-click navigation method; however, after the first five minutes of play, players will see that Penny Arcade Adventures is more so a role-playing game than it is an adventure game. Sure, there are a variety of puzzles one must solve to get past certain objectives, but fighting the correct enemy who holds the proper item generally solves all puzzles.

Some gamers are turned off by the idea of turn-based combat, but Penny Arcade Adventures does a fine job at handling the pacing of each encounter. Each playable character has three different types of moves to choose from: items, attack and special attacks. Like other RPGs, each move must charge up before it can be used.

The items command is the first one ready, followed shortly after by the attack command, then lastly the special attack command. I found this method of play very engaging because it forced me to keep an eye on when certain commands were ready and strategize accordingly.

Adding more depth to the combat is the ability to counterattack everything the enemies throw your way via a timed spacebar click. At first, having to juggle counterattacks while keeping an eye on my attack preparation was a pain in the neck. Couple that with the over all difficult enemies, and you have a recipe for a headache. Eventually, though, the combat becomes second nature with one part passive and another part active.

This first episode has a decent soundtrack for the situations the player is in, but the zero voice acting outside the beginning narrator/tutorial does hamper the experience. For size constraints, I can see why Penny Arcade and Hothead would leave voice acting out, but it was still a pain having to read everything. Hopefully, with Microsoft’s recent upgrade in storage space for XBLA games, Penny Arcade and Hothead will opt to include voice acting in the next chapters.

Many people have been up in arms about the price of this game being $20. Personally, I had no problem shelling out the cash on this game. However, if the subsequent episodes are the same price, then I may get annoyed. It would be smart to release each following episode with a $5 cut in price, therefore making a $50 game in completion.

Going into the creation of this game, Jerry and Mike must have known how people would be critiquing their game. After all, Gabe and Tycho are the first ones to bash a game if it plays horribly. After six or so hours of playing Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One, I can gladly say that they get no harsh complaints from me.