Picking Up Steam: DeathSpank (PC)

The hero Deathspank is what you get if you were to send an idealistic superhero back into medieval times, his single-minded devotion to dishing out justice a bit sillier in a world where he’s got to dish it out by carving goblins up with a sword. In fact, he’s so utterly consumed by the idea of being heroic for heroism’s sake that he doesn’t even understand the quest he’s undertaken, simply knowing there’s something called The Artifact, it’s important for some reason, and it’s not in the hands of people he deems to be on the right side.

 

Deathspank is a comedic action role-playing game where the humor is king. Your quest as Deathspank begins by seeking that vaguely defined artifact that looks a bit like some strips of bacon, but it grows in scope when Lord Von Prong does the quite clearly evil act of capturing orphans, Deathspank always happy to add more quests to his Quest Log. While Lord Von Prong has The Artifact, what he truly covets is the hero’s thong, it seeming to hold some sort of power even though Deathspank himself has never been one to stop and question how he’s able to be strong enough to tear through the many monsters in his path. Perhaps one reason he doesn’t though is Deathspank takes place in a very silly medieval fantasy world. It’s a land where unicorns are actually rather gnarly beasts to be feared and leprechauns run a mob, but it also has characters like Rich Cabin (owner of Rich Cabin’s Cabins for the Rich) and the Town Mayor who are snide jokes made at more modern things like exploitative businessmen and politicians who care more about reelection than the work they should be doing.

Deathspank does sound like it would be potentially cynical, but beyond a bit of a griminess and a world full of caricatures, things remain pretty lighthearted and jokes are often playful jabs delivered enthusiastically rather than dour deconstructions of idealistic fantasy. In fact, while absurdity is a core piece of the strange world featured in this RPG, the game derives its most effective humor from things like wordplay, unexpected swerves, and some fourth-wall jokes. The most interesting part of its approach to meta-humor though might be that it isn’t exactly portraying the characters as aware of the fact they’re in a video game. Instead, elements like the experience points you use to level up are directly mentioned as if they were just part of the world, many characters are quick to tell you to check your Quest Log that would otherwise just be a menu you pull up, and you even run into some enemies who directly say they spent some time over in World of Warcraft. Rather than really breaking the fiction of the world, they incorporate the video game elements into it by acknowledging mechanics that are often abstract elements to help a player experience a game world. While Deathspank’s devotion to the concept of justice could have been a joke run into the ground, the game is very smart with its writing, spacing things out well and having plenty of ways to make the player laugh so none are overused. The delivery of the voice actors definitely helps the game set its tone well, every piece of dialogue voiced which can even add an extra layer to the game’s wittier quips or surprise comments. What’s more, the game will often bring up a set of options for Deathspank to reply with, the player often given a range of silly choices so you get to see the response you want and control how some of the jokes are dished out.

 

Deathspank’s main quest sees him traveling all across the land, fighting foes for many reasons as he either needs to make his way through treacherous territory or he just picked up a quest from someone off the side of the road to go find and kill some monsters. Deathspank isn’t the kind of guy to limit himself to one weapon though, the player able to set up to four of them to different buttons that they can use in battle. The loot you gain from killing monsters, opening treasure chests, and completing quests will gradually scale in strength, meaning you will keep swapping in new tools as you progress, and the range of weapons does feel wide if not always deep. A good deal of the weapons are variants on the standard sword, something you swing when close up, and hammers aren’t too different. Crossbows give you a proper ranged option though and are rarer, meaning you can’t just pelt foes from afar and hope to take them out too often. Where weapons are perhaps better differentiated though are in the special effects some have. These might just be elemental affinities to deal specific types of damage, but there are also ones who have unique powers unleashed when your Justice Meter is full. Once you’ve built up enough energy by attacking foes, Justice Meter attacks can include things like spinning around wildly with your sword, smashing a hammer down to stun targets, or if you have a magic staff, you can even send electricity arcing through all the nearby creatures. You can eventually find Runestones that give you combo attacks involving using two weapons at the same time, but they don’t feel too big an addition since you might not want to use such weapons since they’re too weak for the current fights and battling generally doesn’t require crafty weapon use so much as smart monster management.

Many battles in Deathspank are short, quick encounters with a few enemies, the player often building up experience points, gold, and loot through fighting through small foes and then encountering a trickier group or a foe with a strong power. An ooze might not seem so dangerous, but the little globs that split off them detonate, meaning if you hit them accidentally with your weapon you might end up killing yourself instead. Sometimes an area might have a lot of big dumb brutes who will run towards you to be mowed down easily, but they block you from getting to those annoying archers and shamans who are really landing the painful blows on you. Moving around intelligently when fighting foes ends up incredibly important, especially when you face the giant Pips who can likely kill you in a single blow. You do always have a shield you can utilize to block even the strongest blows so long as you time its use well, and when you level up you get to pick hero trading cards to improve skills like the guard duration, your movement speed, your attack power, or even things like how much money monsters drop. The moments of brief increased danger make up for the more casual killing you’ll do elsewhere, and quests do give you good reason to better explore an area and thus put yourself at risk. Unsurprisingly, many of the quests can be jokes in themselves, Rich Cabin wanting you to scout out good holes in a swamp for golf course for example, and even basic ones like killing a certain amount of turtles can at least have a funny set-up in that you’re finishing a quest for an old man who only killed a few of the ten he was supposed to back when he was an adventurer. There aren’t too many tough bosses unfortunately, especially since you’ll likely be quite strong near the end and enemies start running out of ways to overcome that, but regular battles are generally satisfying and still find ways to test you as you travel.

 

The witty comedy keeps Deathspank alive once its combat starts becoming a bit automatic and enemy designs get recycled more often, but there is still some simple satisfaction in your continued growth even then as you swap in the new weapons and armor you earned. Quests keep paying out with humor even if their designs don’t often ask for anything outside the norm, and Deathspank doesn’t necessarily need to go this journey alone if you have a second player to join you. That player takes on the role of Sparkles the Wizard, a fully ranged fighter who unfortunately cannot improve his skills through gear and other loot but can unleash some special spells to help Deathspank or harm foes. It does feel more like player two is meant to be a supporter than a full-fledged hero, but it’s not so shallow a role that you feel like you might as well not be there, especially since Sparkles packs a healing spell. Deathspank can acquire a good deal of healing tools, only able to carry so many health potions but he can store a great deal of food in his inventory. Potion healing is instant but food requires some time to chow down, meaning while food is the more cost effective method, you need to run off and try to avoid having your meal interrupted if you want to use it mid-fight. One way enemies can get one over on you is not giving you the room for your easier heals, and while a death just sends you back to the nearest outhouse with half your gold laying where you died for possible retrieval, dying in Deathspank often has that feeling of losing out in a fair fight because you know there was something you could have done to avoid your fate.

THE VERDICT: Deathspank hits the right notes with its comedy and its action. While it has plenty of goofy and weird things existing as part of its world, the writing is clever to give you more to laugh at beyond the strangeness. The battle system letting you utilize multiple weapons gives you some range in combat and the enemies are placed well to give you some easy skirmishes for simple thrills as well as fights where properly managing a foe’s behavior is more crucial to taking them out. Some things do wear a touch thin on both sides of the experience, but neither completely wears out their welcome, and despite Deathspank literally calling his side quests unimportant, they give you a good deal of fun from their associated dialogue and the added reasons to head into danger to dish out some more over the top justice.

 

And so, I give Deathspank for PC…

A GOOD rating. The biggest reason to play Deathspank is definitely for the laughs it brings, the writing just as willing to be ridiculous as it is to show that the writers can have a sharp wit or whip out some clever wordplay when they want to. It’s not too much of a surprise to see Ron Gilbert is involved, the writer of the early Monkey Island games able to carry on the kind of humor where a familiar setting is presented in a quirky and more casual light. The main antagonist could use a bit more personality here, some of it layered on right before the fight but when you first encounter him he sings every line and yet drops the gimmick perhaps to his detriment. Deathspank really is more about the adventure to new places, the vague search for an artifact and orphans bringing you to new locations with new enemies so you can enjoy the ridiculous sights of a colorful enchanted forest being beset by logging equipment or end up in a properly dangerous graveyard with explosive undead and swarms of tiny spiders. Deathspank could take some notes from the Monkey Island games in having characters with more realized personalities and a memorable antagonist, and the side quests could be more compelling if they involved more than battles, but Deathspank does work well for the time it lasts even if you do pursue the many optional activities. It does land in a pretty nice zone when it comes to doling out new equipment to keep you constantly customizing Deathspank while the enemies pressure you just often enough so you aren’t just mowing your way through areas, but some more bosses of appreciable strength would also push this game to the next level.

 

While Deathspank does have some room for potty humor and juvenile jokes, outhouses are your checkpoints and fast travel points after all, it understands that serving a buffet of different things to laugh at is better than overinvesting in any one angle. It can place emphasis on wonderfully strange ideas, then show it can be a little smart with a clever bit of banter, and then lightly mock the conventions of action RPGs for a touch of flavor. It faithfully taps into the same enjoyable ideas found in its genre cousins like Diablo while creating a weird little world full of fun surprises. Even when you go some time without dialogue to bring on the humor, the action is solid enough for long enough to keep you enjoying Deathspank’s warped fantasy adventure for justice.