I’m not a gamer. I play video games from time to time, and I’ve been known in years past to play them to excess, but I’m really not a gamer.
Still, I had to try out On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One from Hothead Games and my friends Mike and Jerry over at Penny Arcade.
In short: I loved it. It was challenging, but I was able to beat it. I was short 50 parts for an additional weapon-upgrade for Tycho’s tommy-gun, and none of the characters had their full +15 overkill bonus (they were all at +10.) Honestly, I don’t think those additional 5 damage points make much of a difference in the final battle… not unless there are multipliers attached to them.
It earns its “M” rating very cartoonishly. The jokes are obscene, the dialog is about what you’d expect from a Penny Arcade comic, and you spend a lot of time killing fellow human beings for little more than the crime of being hobos, clowns, barbershoppers, or mimes. Oh, and the little “fruit robot” is there (in great numbers — he’s your source of parts), and you can “distract” him with an orange.
I’m not a better human being for having played it, but I did learn a thing or two about the craft of animation by watching closely. It’s quite pretty, and I liked the music. I LOVED the writing. Jerry Holkins does things with words that border on sorcery. Not to knock Mike’s craft at all — I love his artwork — but it’s Jerry’s writing that always carries the day for me.
The game is definitely worth the $20 I spent.