Game Reviews

If you’ve ever been rooting around in a dungeon, picking off the bloody armor of a fallen foe, and thought to yourself, “you know what this game needs? Comedy,” then I might have found the game for you. Deathspank looks to bridge the gap between casual and hardcore dungeon crawlers with a rather unique take on the genre. When you’re looking for something a little different, sometimes you just need a good spanking. You know what I mean.In this tale of both hacking and slashing, we come across our hero, Deathspank, as he embarks on the last leg in an arduous journey to find the artifact -- ironically known as The Artifact. After a couple of quests under his leather-studded belt, he reaches The Artifact only to have it swiped from him by the evil Lord Von Prong. Of course, this means that we’ll have to travel through unicorn-infested lands, find lost keys, and create the perfect taco just to get The Artifact back.Despite his over-the-top heroic voice, Deathspank actually makes for an intriguing character that can easily switch from bumbling warrior to confused straight man to fit the situation. Most of the thanks here should go to Ron Gilbert, the lead game designer who brought us other such comical classics as The Secret of Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion. His sharp and often dark sense of humor permeates everything from quests to settings. In a genre that’s often focused on getting the quest, I found myself actually listening to some of the full voice dialogue. And it’s because of the all the great dialogue and often weird characters that it’s unfortunate that the game never feels anything more than a series of quests rather than a story pushing you to a climatic ending.