Review: Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People – Episode 1: Homestar Ruiner
Let me make this quick. If you like the quirky humor and nonsensical shenanigans of Strong Bad and Homestar Runner enough to pay $8.95 for a point-and-click episode of the web series, this game is right up your alley. Everyone else, save that money and go buy a yo-yo or a lottery ticket. It’ll keep you entertained far longer.
Bottom Line: 2
Hit the jump to see Strong Bad get a taste of his own verbal pummeling.
Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People isn’t a bad game, for one simple reason. It’s not a game. What it is, amongst other things, is an exercise in futility, a journey into the heart of boredom, and a nearly pointless waste of time. I say nearly pointless, because the ‘game’ is a point-and-click escapade, in which players direct Strong Bad around the Homestar Runner neighborhood in a quest to “pummel” the titular armless white guy. Along the way, Strong Bad encounters other characters from the web series, and can choose to converse about heady topics such as the war in Iraq, this year’s election and the state of the economy.
Of course I made that up. No, the topics of conversation are as about as insipid as they come, and the only redeeming quality of said conversations is Strong Bad’s ability to either say something nice, or “say something he would say,” essentially a third-grade level insult. Unlike any other adventure where contextual conversation impacts the way things go, clicking on all choices available yields no reward or consequence other than the lines of dialogue that follow, which might actually be considered a punishment. The ACLU was too busy with Guantanamo Bay inmates to field my calls on the matter, so in my completely unprofessional and in no way qualified opinion, I’d say… yes.
Through the course of the game, Strong Bad acquires items which come in especially useless, such as hedge trimmers which cannot be used on anything except hedges (why can’t I use them on the other characters? It might have made the game interesting) and a phone for prank calls. I never figured out the point of saving hedge clippings, though I assume because they are in my inventory they serve a purpose. One of life’s great mysteries, I guess.
Another one of life’s mysteries is what the hell the objective of the game is. I guess I’m supposed to “pummel” Homestar, but I never did get that far. I ran around doing menial tasks and clicking through repetitive dialogue trees with no sense of purpose or direction. I finally gave up after a couple of hours, and chose to organize my sock drawer instead. It seemed a logical step up for my day.
But I am giving this game a 2. Why, you ask, would I give it a 2 after it so clearly earned the highest possible score on a scale of zero to negative zero?
Because it made me laugh. I was once a fan of the website, for about a month. I played “Trogdor” repeatedly on Guitar Hero, and I was actually moderately enticed by this game. There are a few points when I chuckled despite the mental stagnation the game brought on. I never “lol’d” as they say, or even guffawed, but I did snicker and I think at one point I may have even chortled.
Still, the few points of humor are not enough to detract from the overall aura of vagueness radiated by this game. It feels like an interactive episode of the web series, and if it were offered for free might be a decent little time-waster of a flash game, but to put a price tag on this, even nine bucks, seems a farce. This should clearly be free content, as no sane person would – or should – pay for the experience.
What does this score mean? Check out our review scoring breakdown.
