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The DeathSpank |OT| (XBLA/PSN)

protonion

Member
ChackanKun said:
Ok, dunno if answered, but what is that Good/Evil thing in the options?

They must be joke options like the ones in Monkey Island 3-4 (enable 3d/multiplayer). Check the trophy/achievement list...
 

noonche

Member
Finished the game yesterday with 100% at about 7 hours. Had a great time. I only had two complaints:
- The combat seems pretty spammy and there doesn't seem to be any thing that you can do about it.
- The game tends to chug a lot on PS3. Lots of screen-tearing and some pretty bad hitching when teleporting into an area. This was a problem with the PA games too and I was hoping that they would have at least turned on vsync. :/

Overall though, I had a lot of fun and look forward to more!
 

legbone

Member
this is the best 15 bux i have spent all year. i really hope this sells well and more loot games come out. i am dying for a really good one. i may end up having to upgrade my computer to play torchlight and diablo III (if i'm not in the nursing home when it comes out).
 

NewBrof

Member
I play the game on my 720p TV on PS3 with almost no tearing... (also I play zoomed in)...

I played the demo and was not impressed, but I bought it anyway since I watched some nice videos / trailers... the game grows on you the longer you play... the combat is good (I wish there would be more ranged weapons)

Now I am hunting those little brats, and I played around 7 hours (Level 15)... great game! Usually I don't finish games, but this I will!
 

Haunted

Member
alske said:
Finished the game yesterday with 100% at about 7 hours. Had a great time. I only had two complaints:
- The combat seems pretty spammy and there doesn't seem to be any thing that you can do about it.
Overall though, I had a lot of fun and look forward to more!
I think the combo chains and blocking (which is definitely necessary for most larger enemies and pretty much all bosses) do a good job preventing the combat from becoming a spam-fest.
 

bon

Member
I just finished this. Not sure exactly how long it took me, but it felt very packed with content. Dialog kept me loling throughout. Shoo-in for download of the year.
 
Level 18, two orphans left, full dragonslayer set, spinny sword with 1006 physical damage, crossbow with 700 something, 433 minutes played.

This game is too much fun.


Haunted said:
I think the combo chains and blocking (which is definitely necessary for most larger enemies and pretty much all bosses) do a good job preventing the combat from becoming a spam-fest.
Truth. It's so satisfying with the most powerful spin sword against a high-level enemy... perfect block = full justice meter = deadly tornado of justice
 

JWong

Banned
Funky Functionality said:
Truth. It's so satisfying with the most powerful spin sword against a high-level enemy... perfect block = full justice meter = deadly tornado of justice
imo the spin sword is overpowered. There's no real reason to use anything else.
 

Papercuts

fired zero bullets in the orphanage.
I used the spin sword, fire axe, and the crossbow for the majority of the game. It kills hordes in an instant.
 
Finished it yesterday. Had a nice smirk on my face playing most of the time. :D

So about the ending.....spoilers beyond....

When DeathSpank enters the WWII area past the gate, was that just a joke at WWII games or are they seriously setting up for DLC/a sequel? I'm guessing the former but I hope for the latter :lol
 

Lackmus

Banned
Does the game have auto-save?

I had a bit of a hurry to work, forgot to save and just turned off my system. I did a lot of sidequests :/
 

thetrin

Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion
Erasus said:
I mean if it is too similar to Torchlight so I end up with two games that are pretty much the same.
God forbid you end up with two games that belong to the same genre.
 
Erasus said:
I mean if it is too similar to Torchlight so I end up with two games that are pretty much the same.

its only like torchlight in the respect that they both have rpg quailtes to them but thats it. DeathSpank is all about the writing and story ( which was very funny and really well wrote) and yes it does have loot in it just like torchlight but it doesnt use that concept as its main idea. I mean you might as well be saying that oblivion and MW2 are the same because you can level up in both of them :lol
 
terrdactycalsrock said:
its only like torchlight in the respect that they both have rpg quailtes to them but thats it. DeathSpank is all about the writing and story ( which was very funny and really well wrote) and yes it does have loot in it just like torchlight but it doesnt use that concept as its main idea. I mean you might as well be saying that oblivion and MW2 are the same because you can level up in both of them :lol

I'm not sure you're the best authority on good writing :lol

But yeah Death Spank is really not that similar to Torchlight, and the writing is pretty fucking excellent.
 

xbhaskarx

Member
I waited until last night to complete this so I had something to play while waiting for Limbo to be released... I'm glad new content or a sequel (hopefully both) was hinted at, but the ending was rather lame, badly done and unsatisfying.

If there was DLC already available, I would buy it.
 

JWong

Banned
Lackmus said:
Does the game have auto-save?

I had a bit of a hurry to work, forgot to save and just turned off my system. I did a lot of sidequests :/
I think it saves on ever outhouse and every time you go in and out of a menu.
Prime crotch said:
Fun game, humour is very hit and miss, but if you're going to pull that ending at least announce it as episodic.
That's a bad idea.
 

DryvBy

Member
I dunno if this has been touched on yet (sure it has but I couldn't find anything). Online co-op a possibility or no?
 

Sqorgar

Banned
Prime crotch said:
Fun game, humour is very hit and miss, but if you're going to pull that ending at least announce it as episodic.
All humor is hit and miss. It's impossible to write a joke that everybody laughs at every time. The best you can do is create a general feeling of mirth, put your best foot forward, and hope the planets are aligned. But there were two different writing "teams", so the game can be a bit uneven tonally.
 
eznark said:
why would it be in the lost and found? (It is there, but why?)
Luckily I didn't run into this bug (the C4 spawned at my feet and I picked it up after the mission dialog) but I'm guessing the C4 sometimes spawns in an unreachable spot, and like all important items left on the ground, it will be sent to the Lost and Found when you run off and leave it.
 
Princess Skittles said:
I must be playing a different game or everyone else is in for the style/humor only.

The actual gameplay is mediocre to awful.

Couldn't disagree more, the combat is pretty simplistic on the surface, but the multiplier bonus for chaining attacks with different weapons and the runestones that allow you to combine the special attacks of two weapons add a bit of depth, encourage you to try all the weapons and ensures the gameplay is enjoyable throughout, imo. The quest structure could be improved upon though, there was entirely too much running back and forth for some quests.
 

JesseZao

Member
Princess Skittles said:
I must be playing a different game or everyone else is in for the style/humor only.

The actual gameplay is mediocre to awful.

I didn't enjoy the gameplay
or humor
. Too bad really, because it's exactly the type of game I've been wanting from XBLA for a while now.
 

BeeDog

Member
Impulse bought the game today, didn't even try the demo. Great little game, I'll probably get slaughtered for this, but I'm liking this one a lot more than Torchlight.
 

Princess Skittles

Prince's's 'Skittle's
Bootaaay said:
Couldn't disagree more, the combat is pretty simplistic on the surface, but the multiplier bonus for chaining attacks with different weapons and the runestones that allow you to combine the special attacks of two weapons add a bit of depth, encourage you to try all the weapons and ensures the gameplay is enjoyable throughout, imo. The quest structure could be improved upon though, there was entirely too much running back and forth for some quests.
The loosey "buzzsaw" gameplay really turned me off.. especially after playing great action RPGs like Ys 7 or Kingdom Hearts.

I suppose this type of gameplay works for people that are used to game likes MMOs or Diablo/Torchlight, I guess.

JesseZao said:
I didn't enjoy the gameplay
or humor
. Too bad really, because it's exactly the type of game I've been wanting from XBLA for a while now.
Same here. This and Arkadian Warriors, 0/2 so far. :'(
 

Haunted

Member
It's a real shame there isn't a proper loot system in place here. It's all predetermined equipment, so everyone will end up with the same armour set in the end (and the same armour set a level below, and a level below that etc.)


So, imo, that and the absence of a skill tree already disqualifies it from even being a loot game in the vein of Diablo, Borderlands or Torchlight. Having randomly generated loot or weapons would've definitely increased the value for me. A missed opportunity, but oh well. I liked the gameplay and humour well enough to feel I got my money's worth, anyway. There's just little reason to go back and play it now that I've seen all the weapons and all the armour there is, and know at which point I'll get it.


Sqorgar said:
All humor is hit and miss. It's impossible to write a joke that everybody laughs at every time. The best you can do is create a general feeling of mirth, put your best foot forward, and hope the planets are aligned. But there were two different writing "teams", so the game can be a bit uneven tonally.
That is exactly what it feels like.

First you're delighted by a bunch of clever puns, off-beat humour and videogame references, and bam, suddenly there's poop jokes and characters telling you lame old jokes which have nothing to do with anything (Eubrick had some particularly bad lines there).

I believe that this is what people mostly refer to when they say the humour is hit or miss in this one.
 
Bootaaay said:
Couldn't disagree more, the combat is pretty simplistic on the surface, but the multiplier bonus for chaining attacks with different weapons and the runestones that allow you to combine the special attacks of two weapons add a bit of depth, encourage you to try all the weapons and ensures the gameplay is enjoyable throughout, imo.
Not really, you can plummel away everything without care for the chaining system, not to mention it's how you beat the last boss, and once you get a spinning sword well its pratically a win button.
 

Mrbob

Member
Haunted said:
It's a real shame there isn't a proper loot system in place here. It's all predetermined equipment, so everyone will end up with the same armour set in the end (and the same armour set a level below, and a level below that etc.)

D:
 

Sqorgar

Banned
Haunted said:
It's a real shame there isn't a proper loot system in place here. It's all predetermined equipment, so everyone will end up with the same armour set in the end (and the same armour set a level below, and a level below that etc.)
I think people are missing the point. In my opinion the focus of the game is in the characters, world, and humor. The loot whore stuff is more peripheral to that experience. The armor isn't so much loot, more as it is a joke unto itself (you can make DeathSpank look silly). At the very least, the gameplay isn't so shallow that it makes the game mindless, but isn't so involved that it takes focus away from the good parts. Non-intrusive.

There's just little reason to go back and play it now that I've seen all the weapons and all the armour there is, and know at which point I'll get it.
There's no reason to go back and play Monkey Island either, but people do it because they want to revisit the characters and situations. Who knows? In a year's time, maybe you'll feel like replaying the game again? Maybe if DeathSpank becomes a franchise...

First you're delighted by a bunch of clever puns, off-beat humour and videogame references, and bam, suddenly there's poop jokes and characters telling you lame old jokes which have nothing to do with anything (Eubrick had some particularly bad lines there).
I wrote all of Eubrick's lines, so if there's inconsistencies there, it's my fault. Which lines didn't you like?

In general, I tried to make the humor as broad as possible. I'm not at HotHead. I've never even met them. I did everything through email, writing jokes alone in my room. I knew very little about the game other than the dialogue outlines they handed me. No idea what the game looked like, what the characters looked like, what they sounded like, or even what the dialogues would play like (towards the end, I couldn't even test the dialogues). Most of the time, I couldn't even do a second draft. So I went with a shotgun approach - just spray the wall and see what sticks. There were certain types of jokes that they cut completely (I thought it was funny when characters used really long words like polycephalic lagomorph, and I don't think any of those jokes survived) and other jokes which they changed, and some jokes they kept as is. I'm not sure what their criteria was but they kept more than they changed.

I wasn't too thrilled with the poop jokes, myself. I wrote Bobblewood, the guy who gives you the quest to collect demon dung (was not involved in the unicorn poop). I had to write dialogue around poop without being crass or disgusting, and it wasn't easy. I ended up looking up poop euphemisms online, trying to find different ways he could refer to dung without constantly saying "poop" in every line. When I discovered "meadow muffins", it was like my prayers had been answered.

I believe that this is what people mostly refer to when they say the humour is hit or miss in this one.
What I meant is that some of the subquest NPCs didn't seem to have any jokes at all. There were a couple times when I'd talk to a guy, get three lines of dialogue and a quest, and wonder if they were using placeholder dialogue. So many characters I could've been paid money to write :)
 

bon

Member
Yeah, people might be taking the "Monkey Island + Diablo" thing too literally. I can see why someone would be disappointed with DeathSpank if they were expecting a hardcore looting game. I went in expecting a funny game, and was satisfied.
 
Got 100% on it the other night. Happy with the game overall, but I think the game dragged for me at the end. What let it down was far too many characters with "Go get this for me. OK thanks but now I need this. Great, but that's not all I need. I'll be wanting this also. Oh and before I can complete it I need this too. But wait there's something else..." and on and on. So it was getting a bit tedious. I was pleased to be finished.

I must admit I think I only used block once and kept forgetting all about it. Bar meeting up with Nanny (a level or 2 below hers) and those big ogre troll type things in the burnt village, game wasn't that challenging so I had no need for the block anyways.
 

krae_man

Member
Man I wish unopened treasure chests(you've encountered) showed up on the map. I cant for the life of me remember the ones I missed because I had no keys to open them. I also wish the quest givers showed up on the world map that way as I couldn't remember where someone ones after I completed a quest sometimes.

It took me 15 teleports to find the Wizard:lol


Another minor complaint, there were a few times when I had already killed all of something before I was given a quest to kill them and enough didn't respawn. Example: I already killed all the Blinkers before I talked to Rich Cabin who gave me a quest to kill 8 of them and after I took the quest only 7 respawned and I had to leave and come back for more to show up to complete the quest.

It also would have been nice if the Guts or whatever were still collectable before the quest is given. It makes sense that you cant get the demon poop till you get the demon hammer but not getting the blinker guts till after you accept the quest for them makes no sense.

Oh and I <3 spinning sword.
 

robot

Member
picked this up tonight for $10 thanks to Andvary (gaf buy/sell) and it's really fun. the one minor complaint I have is combat doesn't have much force behind it (reminds me of gauntlet) but everything is great. it's pretty hilarious too. already got stuck near the demon caves though, I think I need to grind a bit since I'm getting my ass kicked.

one thing I was a little confused about (actually two things) are the purple weapons - are the specifically for the special meter or should I be using them all the time? and I also noticed some of my equipment is in a green box - should I be trying to equip all green stuff for a boost or something? I have auto equip on so I'm not sure if they are related.
 
akachan ningen said:
What do the ^ icons that some equipment have mean?
that they are of a tier of three or four other weapons of that type

you may see one that looks like this eventually >>>*, which will be the highest level that weapon can be found in
 

bon

Member
robot said:
picked this up tonight for $10 thanks to Andvary (gaf buy/sell) and it's really fun. the one minor complaint I have is combat doesn't have much force behind it (reminds me of gauntlet) but everything is great. it's pretty hilarious too. already got stuck near the demon caves though, I think I need to grind a bit since I'm getting my ass kicked.

one thing I was a little confused about (actually two things) are the purple weapons - are the specifically for the special meter or should I be using them all the time? and I also noticed some of my equipment is in a green box - should I be trying to equip all green stuff for a boost or something? I have auto equip on so I'm not sure if they are related.
Purple weapons are for the special meter, but you can also use them normally if you want.

A green box around equipment means that it's the strongest equipment of that type that you're carrying.
 
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