From the creative genius that brought you The Secret of Monkey Island and all things enjoyable, comes DeathSpank, Ron Gilbert’s latest successful attempt at bringing joy to the masses.

Rating: T for Teen
Genre: Fantasy RPG
Number of Players: 1-2
Publisher: Hothead Games
Release Date: July 14, 2010

BUY

DeathSpank Dispenser of Justice, Vanquisher of Evil, is an action RPG set in medieval fantasy times where everything is bright colors and adorable violence is the norm. The character of DeathSpank must battle his way through armies of your stereotypical fantasy villains (orcs, demons, witches, etc.) in hopes of eventually defeating the evil and annoying Lord Von Prong. For those familiar with Ron Gilbert’s work, he’s not necessarily breaking new ground with the story or comedy, but it certainly makes for a fun and engaging experience; the first time I sat down to play it I burned through 10 straight hours without even realizing it. Set aside the time!

Poop, darn you! Poooooooop!

The gameplay itself is super easy to pick up and go with, since Hot Head Games has made the normally frustratingly ridiculous RPG inventory system manageable for the RPG-lite among us. The quests range from the weirdly simple (walk over there and pick up that thing) to the quite challenging (try to collect some poop from that swarm of unicorns that are 10 levels higher than you), and as long as you use your cache of potions and health foods correctly (is pizza a health food?), anyone of any gameplay experience should be able to work their way through DeathSpank with limited cursing/controller throwing. For the completionists out there, DeathSpank makes the 100% Achievement goal actually achievable, so it’s worth buying for the 200GP alone. The summer is usually a drought for games with any substance, so at only $15, there is really no good reason for not buying one this fun.

Though I’m not still holding a grudge against DeathSpank for last year’s Unicorn Poop Shirt Debacle at PAX 09 (yes I am), I do have a couple valid and unrelated gripes with the game. While it offers the option of playing along with a friend, make sure you grab the P1 controller and not P2, so you don’t have to spend the entire game as that damned Wizard. If you are slower than your friend and are stuck with Sparkles the Wizard, congratulations! Welcome to the next several hours of a couple lackluster attacks and a minor healing spell. I feel like they really missed out on the opportunity to take multiplayability to a new level; I would’ve loved to have played as mysterious redhead Sandy Bravitor, or even as that crotchety-but-interesting old miser Eubrick. I also found the difficulty settings to be a bit weird, but I don’t want to commit too much to this criticism because, as I mentioned early, I’m not really very good at RPGs.

You bore me, Sparkles.

DeathSpank is fun, clever, and annoyingly endearing. It’s seriously quite addicting and very hard to put down once you’ve started, regardless of any minor problems it may have. If you’re looking for a game to distract you from the autumn chill that’s engulfing our waning summer, seriously, please try DeathSpank. You’ll thank me by the time you’ve slain your 100^th Vicious Chicken.