Do your friends a favor and slog your way through DeathSpank on your own. Neither Steve the Ninja nor Sparkles the Wizard is anything more than a tagalong sidekick with little to offer beyond fifteen minutes worth of fun. Thongs of Virtue is a bit more coherent, as the save-the-world saga provides a narrative momentum that helps to hold your interest throughout the game.įinally, Thongs of Virtue does allow for some limited co-op action, but it’s more of a novelty than a selling point.
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DeathSpank was little more than a series of disjointed encounters with random NPCs. The story is also far more satisfying the second time around. The sequel has plenty of loot, but Hothead has wisely toned it down so that you feel more like an adventurer and less like an accountant. Moving on, one of the biggest problems with the first DeathSpank was the overwhelming number of item drops that turned inventory management into the video game equivalent of a yard sale. The bosses aren’t overly difficult as long as you’ve got a bazooka, but they’re challenging enough to be noteworthy and, more importantly, they always feel like boss fights. It starts with the boss fights, which combine the core DeathSpank mechanics with puzzle elements that differentiate the major battles from the regular (and repetitive) grind. That isn’t much of a setback – you’ll immediately resurrect at the nearest outhouse – but it is an irritating inconvenience.įortunately, all of the other changes are improvements. You’ll eventually learn to keep your distance, but it doesn’t take much to drop your life bar from healthy to dead. The uneven terrain makes it impossible to predict impact points with bazookas and grenades, meaning that you’re just as likely to kill yourself as an opponent. Meanwhile, there are bombs on the battlefield, crates of TNT on the train tracks, and self-destructing robots that will kamikaze your location, and with so much combustible material, splash damage becomes an unpredictable concern. The bullets make it a bit too easy to cut through some of the bad guys, and the melee/ranged attack balance isn’t quite as refined as it was in the original. Your first projectile is a semi-automatic pistol and you’ll quickly stockpile an arsenal of grenades, bazookas, and alien ray guns. The emphasis on modern military technology is a bit more problematic. I preferred the humor in the first game, but the quality difference is negligible, and you’re advised to take this as commentary instead of criticism. That said, there’s no accounting for personal taste, and you may enjoy the sheer absurdity. Anachronisms aren’t as funny when everything is out of place, and the game would benefit from some more stable points of reference. The historical hodgepodge is generally amusing, but it does create some mixed comedic moments. The game opens on a WWII battlefield, and you’ll soon be repairing radio towers, sailing on pirate ships, and doing battle with a celebrity chef in front of a panel of Japanese judges. Thongs of Virtue opts for a more overtly modern atmosphere. Despite a rather large list of anachronisms, the first DeathSpank maintained a medieval veneer that kept the story grounded. If you’re wondering what makes Thongs of Virtue different, you need to look towards the subtle alterations in setting and tone.
There are numerous pop culture and gaming references laced into the extensive script, and while the reliance on conventional gameplay tricks blunts a few of the jokes, the general silliness always shines through.
Like its predecessor, Thongs of Virtue is a self-aware parody of the RPG genre and video game logic in general. Of course, the game’s real appeal lies in the offbeat humor that frequently upstages the action. You can still use fortune cookies to purchase answers to puzzles and you’ll still spend a lot of time running in circles while gobbling down healing platters of pizza and fries. You can equip up to four weapons and four items at any given time and all of the other mechanics are unchanged from the original. The gameplay consists of unremarkable hack-and-slash combat that takes you through a series of colorful monsters and locales. A fantasy game in which the three main villains are corrupt incarnations of Mother Theresa, Rachel Ray, and Santa Claus has some obvious charm, and Thongs of Virtue manages to drag plenty of punch lines out of the insanity. The plot is a thinly veiled knockoff of the Lord of the Rings, but that’s a fine launch point for satire. You play as DeathSpank, a thong-clad dispenser of justice on a quest to gather and destroy the six Thongs of Virtue in the fires from which they were made. DeathSpank was light on plot, and everything you need to know is recapped within the first ten minutes. That’s true even if you haven’t played the original.
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