 Review By: Jared Black |
Developer: | Telltale Games |
| Publisher: | Telltale Games | |
| Genre: | Adventure | |
| ESRB: | Teen | |
| # Of Players: | 1 | |
| Online Play: | No | |
| Accessories: | OS: Windows XP / Vista Processor: 1.5GHz RAM: 256MB (512MB recommended) Video card: 32MB 3D-accelerated video card (64MB recommended) DirectX 9 |
The puzzles display some of the lessons Telltale learned in Sam & Max, as they’re generally plot-driven and logical as long as the player is paying attention. While playing I briefly got stuck at a couple of points, but by going through my inventory and following the storyline I was able to quickly figure out what to do next, and never experienced the occasional frustration I did in Season One of Sam & Max. Nevertheless, there is a built-in hint system (with three levels of hintiness) should less-experienced adventurers need it.
Also, just like with Sam & Max there are several mini-games to participate in. Strong Bad has a copy of Snake Boxer 5 in his “Fun Machine,” which strongly resembles the old Atari 2600 game Boxing, and it even has a secret cheat code Strong Bad can locate in the game. It’s a fun little game, with the arrow keys moving the boxer and CTRL punching, and Strong Bad makes generally funny quips throughout. On Wii, Snake Boxer 5 is controlled by turning the Wii Remote on its side and using it like a NES controller. The player can also help Strong Bad assemble the perfect Teen Girl Squad comic, by suggesting the right items to use in each frame of the storyline to help the girls meet their timely demise in the worst way possible. I found this to be mostly trial-and-error with some very obscure logic behind it, but it’s an amusing side game nevertheless.
There are also other opportunities during the game to do more than simply point ‘n click at things, such as using a metal detector to discover buried treasure in outdoor areas. It’s there (and elsewhere) you’ll find various collectibles, such as accessories that Strong Bad can add to his photo booth wardrobe, pages for his Snake Boxer 5 manual, and new Teen Girl Squad ideas. The game tracks Strong Bad’s overall awesomeness level based on locating these, as well as high scores in Teen Girl Squad and Snake Boxer 5, people phone pranked, etc. In the photo booth Strong Bad can be photographed against various backgrounds doing random poses, wearing the costumes found during the game. On PC these are stored in the My Documents folder (and unlimited), while on Wii these can be emailed using Strong Bad’s Lappy 486 to Wii friends or posted on the Wii’s message board. However, only four pictures can be saved at any time in the Wii version.
Going forward, it appears that each new episode will feature a new Teen Girl Squad comic to assemble, and at least one new game for Strong Bad to play. Since Strong Bad has both Peasant’s Quest (my personal favorite) and a Trogdor arcade cabinet (currently “broken”) in his house already, those would seem like logical candidates to be featured in the near future.
Even though Homestar Ruiner already shows a lot of polish in its gameplay and storytelling mechanics, on a technical level the engine still needs a bit of work. In particular, throughout the game certain objects failed to show up at all where they should. This occurred mostly with characters’ eyes, as eye-less Strong Bad, The Cheat, and Strong Mad regularly appeared on my screen and creeped me out during the game. I also noticed a TV screen that displayed solid blue instead of the image it was supposed to display as well. At first I wrote that off as the developers being lazy and/or rushed and simply not creating a texture for the screen, until I replayed that part of the game and saw the proper TV screen. There’s also an item that Strong Bad wears on his head during the main storyline that disappeared during one part of the game as well, with unintentionally hilarious results.
Bottom Line:
Homestar Ruiner allows fans to play through most of the franchise’s major locations and interact with virtually all of the major characters, while controlling arguably its most popular character. Strong Bad’s antics translate very well to the adventure game format, and the gameplay is solid with puzzles that are challenging without being illogical.
Minor glitches aside, Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 1: Homestar Ruiner is a strong start to what should be another long and successful episodic franchise from Telltale Games.
| Pros: | Cons: | Final Score: |
|---|---|---|
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| 8.5 |
Posted: 2008-08-11 05:26:36 PST