Telltale Games has proven two things with its on-going Sam & Max adventure game series. One, it’s one of the few developers able to produce serialized game content with enough regularity that it actually qualifies as episodic. Two, traditional adventure games–the kind that most people have declared to be dead, myself included–can still be plenty of fun, so long as they’re real, real funny.
Telltale will be bringing both of these proficiencies to bear in Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People, an episodic adventure series based on the long-running Strong Bad Email cartoons found on Homestarrunner.com. Telltale will be bringing Strong Bad to both the PC and WiiWare, and I got a hands-on look the latter at Nintendo’s recent media summit.
While playable, there’s not much to say about the underlying mechanics of Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People. From what we saw, this is a straightforward point-and-click adventure game, which makes the Wii-based controls a real natural fit. You’ll get missions via email on your Lappy 486, interact with characters, travel to different locations, collect and combine items, and so on. The real strength seems to be a capacity for capturing the humor of the Homestar Runner universe and its characters, and the funniest parts of the demo were apropos of nothing. I played quick round of Snake Boxer 5, a video game that bears a striking resemblance to Boxing for the Atari 2600, except for, you know, with snakes. Having found Homestar Runner’s Sonny-Crockett-style cell-phone in the kitchen, I had Strong Bad call himself, which led to an awkward crank call on his own answering machine.
I could go on, but there are few things less funny than someone trying to describe something that’s actually funny. Suffice it to say, there were a few chuckles in what I saw, and with the capable Telltale writers working closely with the Chapman brothers–the creators of Strong Bad–I expect there to be many more. Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People will consist of five monthly episodes that will kick off this June.
24 Comments
needs moar pictures of Snake Boxer 5!!
Hopefully the episodes last a few hours and don’t cost more than $10. If those are the cases, I’m buying them.
Snake Boxer will be the best part about this game. Fact.
I think this post is very WTF!?!?
I never cared for these games then and I really don’t care for them now. They existed because of technical limitations, now that we can do games like Mass Effect and Bioshock, why go back to un-funny point and click games?
From somebody talking about how stupid and pretentious Wired is, liking these games is about as bad. The whole “cool funny” thing is what separates the geeks from the asshole geeks.
Portal is as close as I come to being amused by lame humor in a video game, and it’s barely chuckle-inducing.
What’s next, a new 7th Guest?
You must be a hoot at cocktail parties, Duke Togo.
NO TROGDOR, NO PEACE
KNOW TROGDOR, KNOW PEACE
I am jazzed for Snake Boxer. My favorite part of Space Quest 3
was the AstroChicken arcade game. Sign me up.
Oh my god, this is so flipping sweet I can’t even describe it.
There are some people out there who find you attractive but do you really need to announce it to all your hardcore gamer friends, that’ll get you taped to a flagpole for sure.
“I could go on, but there are few things less funny than someone trying to describe something that’s actually funny.”
Ryan, you put into words what everyone’s always thought when accosted with a “Dude, I just saw the funniest thing!”
magical floating box in picture 5 ftw!
also, could you guys make it so there’s an easy way to scroll through all the pictures instead of having one pop up and then closing it and going to the next one.
This is beyond epicness…
Strongbad stopped being funny to me once I passed the age of 16.
I highly recommend you play Sam & Max Season 2 Episode 5. It is quite possibly the best episode yet. It is a game developer’s worst fear… come true!
Strongbad FTW.
This is actually my most-anticipated Wii game at present. I am very, very impressed with what Wiiware is shaping up to be. Glad to see point-and-click adventure games have found a new home. Heres hoping a new Monkey Island is in the near future.
Duke Togo you never played monkey island have you? there have been some very good point and click games in the past and i’m happy to see them make a come back.
Point and click adventure games are about sharp writing not about gameplay
I should probably get the Sam & Max episodes sometime, still haven’t got them even if I liked the original.
This game looks awesome. I love Strongbad. We definitely need more simple funny point-and-click adventure games.
“Strongbad stopped being funny to me once I passed the age of 16.”
You must be dead on the inside :(.
Yeah, I was never the biggest Homestarrunner fan myself, but I’ll definately check this out.
Already knew about this and I cannot wait.
I really like adventure games, and I’m glad they have a future as DLC. Sam & Max was good, but I think Homestarrunner’s humor is more up my alley.
Also, I hope that this time, Telltale will let you skip through dialog. That was my one complaint about Sam & Max (season one).
David: You just had to right click to skip dialog.