Have you ever felt the call to be a Hero? To come to the aid of helpless orphans? Does the urge to bring a unique taste of justice to wrongdoers while wearing a purple thong overcome you? Then you may have what it takes to play DeathSpank, the latest title from the creative mind of Ron Gilbert and the team at Hothead Games.
In DeathSpank you take the role of the greatest hero in the land on his search to find the Artifact. What does the Artifact do you ask? No one really know the exact purpose. But it’s an artifact and it has a really cool design so what’s not to like about it? During his travels across the chicken filled countryside he stumbles into a small town with quite the troubled populace. This is where the story really begins to pick up.
DeathSpank is a hack and slash adventure game with a lot of loot and a lot more humor. It never takes itself too seriously, so when you are playing you will always have a smile on your face while you are eradicating chickens and other baddies. And boy are there a lot of baddies. Littered about the landscape are camps of ogres and leprechaun hitmen, to vicious unicorns. But they have something we all want, loot. Sweet, sweet loot. From epic armor like the Boots of Bling and the Bladed Shoulders of Blades, to weapons like the Chicken Cannon. That’s right, a cannon that fires chickens. As you can see there is no shortage of laughs here.
Apart from the main questline there are many other side quests scattered about. These people will have you looking for everything from demon poop to rocks for their soup to missing family members. A couple of notable quests are the tree in the enchanted forest who asks you to find him such random objects it’s worth doing just to see what he will ask you to gather up next. Also, the orphan you come across in the demon mines is fun to talk to. Keep up the “I know you are but what am I” line of questioning for an enjoyable finish.
While the quests are fun and a good way to get items and advance the story, they can get rather tiresome after a few back and forth trips to the same place. This is the only area where DeathSpank earned my ire. Going back to an NPC only for them to say “Oh by the way I forgot…” time and time again. Not fun.
With the quest issues being the only point of contention, DeathSpank is likely to be the best bang for your gaming buck this summer. Yes I know there is still sometime till the end of this heat and that cool autumn breeze takes my allergies away. But for $15 you will get a solid 15+ hours of great gameplay, providing you take your time to see the sites.
