You know, the long-awaited followup to DeathSpank?
Make no mistake: I think we all knew that Hothead Games was going to make a sequel to its action-RPG comedy DeathSpank. Heck, the original game ends with a very transparent cliffhanger for a follow-up. So it's not a big surprise. But who would have guessed that Hothead was nearly done making that sequel?
It's 'cause thongs are funny. But that's absolutely the case, as EA and Hothead have revealed DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue, the sequel to the original DeathSpank, which will be out on September 21 on PSN and September 22 on XBLA. Of course, Hothead didn't turn around a sequel to DeathSpank in the three months between the game's July release and now. Quite the contrary; according to Hothead, Thongs of Virtue was in development alongside the original release of the game. That's right; they were engaging in the dark art of making the sequel before the previous game was properly released, Back To the Future II/III style.
== TEASER ==And it sounds like concurrent development with the first game means that DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue won't be an especially different game from its predecessor. According to an interview with Hothead Producer Hamish Millar over at Kotaku, the new DeathSpank will be mechanically and artistically unchanged from the first game, so players who played that original game will know exactly what to expect from Thongs of Virtue. However, though the core mechanics will remain unchanged, the balance of gameplay systems is being altered: Thongs will offer more puzzle and adventure gameplay than its predecessor. The game will add some new items types to the game (including the somewhat-anachronistic addition of proper guns) and promised to be a full 50 percent longer than its predecessor. It's because people use underwear to cover their private parts. That's what makes it funny. Of course, one has to wonder if a DeathSpank sequel developed alongside the first game and released so shortly after would be able to address some of the issues players had with the first game. The press release boasts about the new items, locations, characters, and monsters that were added to the sequel, but the interview at Kotaku paints the game as a standalone expansion pack that is mechanically similar to the original game. There's still no online co-op in the game, with Hothead instead updating the game's asymmetrical co-op with a new character for the second player to control. Also, your original campaign progress from DeathSpank will not be carried over to the sequel: you'll start afresh from level one and work your way back to the top.
And all of that is why this game is not called DeathSpank 2. And thongs are like underwear, but they don't have a lot of material, so they don't cover much of the private parts. That's the humor. Kotaku has some more details about Thongs of Virtue in its interview with Millar, but I'm curious as to how a mostly similar follow-up to DeathSpank is received, especially if, apart from some asset changes, it's very similar to the original game. We're bound to have more details ridiculously soon, because that game is coming out in September.
Maybe I should finish the first one, then. Just need to complete Starcraft 2 first. And Limbo. And Red Dead. And Alan Wake. And Assassin's Creed 2. And Borderlands. And... I need to quit my job.
I was so tired of deathspank at the end of that game. I really doubt I'll give this game a shot. It's also sad that he released a game right before summer of arcade and pretty soon after.
Just shared my issues about the title with a Hothead PR guy over Twitter; his message was that the quality of the ingame writing speaks for itself. I don't doubt that's the case; I just think they should have taken their cues from Telltale on their episode-naming policy instead of doing the same contrast of silly-over-serious that you find in the name DeathSpank itself.
Not that DeathSpank as a name is any better. What if Full Throttle called itself "Kick-Ass RoadHawg Adventure"? Would its fanbase have been more or less likely to pick it up off the shelf? What kind of game would they have expected?
You know, the short succession of these games could just work for me. I had fun with the first one but the weird scenario mix turns me off a bit. Also, I think it should be 10$ max.
" They said this game "Used to be episodic, but now it's a full experience." but now it's clear that they just said that to make the game appear longer than it really was, and it's still episodic, they're just gonna call the new episodes "Sequels". "
But a full game costs $60. The two episodes combined will cost $30. If you only want half of that, you can just pay $15.
I fail to see how they are screwing anyone by giving people the choice of how much or how little DeathSpank they want to play. Either way it seems like a reasonable deal.
" Kessler's snarky comments under the photos is probably more funny than anything in the game. "
I thought they were more annoying than any of the humor in the game. Trying way too hard to make fun of a joke that tries a bit too hard creates a paradox where laughter dies. "
+1. Also, this thread has revealed to me, again, how incredibly jaded the gaming community is.
I loved DeathSpank. There's a particular Ron Gilbert style of humour that he invented with timed text boxes that I can't get enough of. It's a dry, intellectual wit from a more literate age; its not about 'look at this ridiculous object', its more 'here's an overwhelmingly detailed mythology and culture that has sprung up around this ridiculous object, just like your mythology and culture'. The complexity of the satire is not to everyone's taste and many people confuse map with territory, including Matt Kessler here.
DeathSpank's formulae, as well, is a perfect evolution of the adventure genre. While I do admire and love Telltale's work, they really haven't added to the art beyond making a lot of it. Gilbert's brilliant notion of adding a light rpg/action mechanic to space out the regular conversation trees and item combining is inspired, and I believe the true way to fold in and modernise the adventure genre for a new generation. I am 100% on board with DS:ToV, and couldn't be more excited.
" Kessler's snarky comments under the photos is probably more funny than anything in the game. "
I thought they were more annoying than any of the humor in the game. Trying way too hard to make fun of a joke that tries a bit too hard creates a paradox where laughter dies. "
+1. Also, this thread has revealed to me, again, how incredibly jaded the gaming community is. "
Are we really being that jaded? It's a stupid, unfunny subtitle that is now attached to a stupid, unfunny title. I don't think it's jaded to want more from a product that's ostensibly humorous.
Although I think it's a little early, I'm still super excited for this game as the first one was amazingly fun. Btw, anyone saying this game wasn't very long, you got a full fledged title with pretty high production values and a unique art style, 8 hours of gameplay and lots of truly funny jokes for just 20 euro's/dollars. How is that bad?
I definitely enjoyed my first playthrough of DeathSpank, but I wish they had done something to add some replayability; I haven't even thought about touching it since I completed it. I'll still probably pick this one up.
I am really interested to see how this does. This is both the greatest idea ever and a terrible extremely risky idea, it is the Schrodinger's cat of sequels. For people who finished the first one the week it came out and want more this seems poised to release with the perfect amount of time since the first one.
It is fresh in the mind but just long enough since the first one that if that one didn't burn you out this is a welcome surprise. On the other one hand if the first one did wear thin on you this probably doesn't fix anything you didn't like and you are very unlikely to grab this one (unless you want to pay $15 for 200 points of course). Then there are people like me who haven't had time to finish the first one and since statistics show that most people, at least 90%, don't actually finish games they are unlikely to pickup the sequel.
Personally this gives me a good kick in the ass to finish Deathspank soon and grab the sequel when that comes out. I have enjoyed what I played of it so far, I just have been distracted by many other games. However I have the sneaking suspicious that most people will not follow my logic and thus I am fascinated to know how well this ends up selling. Maybe an unusually high percentage of people finished the first game and are chomping at the bit for a sequel; maybe this will push a lot of people to finish the first one; maybe there are a bunch of people who never played the first game, heard good word of mouth but didn't get around to buying that one and they will buy this one; maybe a lot of people just buy whatever is new each Wednesday. Will the stars align or will this just end up being a ballsy failure?
+1. Also, this thread has revealed to me, again, how incredibly jaded the gaming community is. "
Are we really being that jaded? It's a stupid, unfunny subtitle that is now attached to a stupid, unfunny title. I don't think it's jaded to want more from a product that's ostensibly humorous. "
I wasn't really commenting on the debate over how funny Deathspank is, but more the general negativity toward it period, whether it be lack of PC version, length, time frame, whatever. For the record, I find the idea of searching for thongs to be hilarious. The irreverence is sort of the point, IMO.
Huh, now I vaguely regret buying the original game. This kind of sucks, no way I'm getting the sequel. Should have spent the development time on making that first game a better experience.
Well, fuck. What do I do now? I wanted to buy DeathSpank... but it seems stupid to buy the first one when the second one is supposed to be longer and better :/
Any recommendations? If so, shoot me a PM! Thanks, bros!
" Original development for DeathSpank was going to be episodic. "
Oh yeah, I remember reading about that and I also recall them announcing they were no longer going the episodic route. So at this point the only difference between a sequel or an episode is marketing. I wonder how many of these games they have in the pipe. I guess the good thing about not announcing episodic plans is that they are not committed to delivering a pre-announced number of episodes, if the second one doesn't sell they don't have to deliver 3 more.
I recall Telltale talking about problems with people sticking with a season for every episode if they are paying per-episode, you tend to get fallout so by the time you get to the last episode you have significantly less people buying that one than the first episode. I think that is why they have mandatory season passes for Tales from Monkey Island and the newest season of Sam and Max.
Maybe if you never market your releases as episodes you don't have that problem because newer players don't feel they need to play through the previous games to understand the newest one.
I liked this game more for the humor, than the gameplay, though the play was good enough. It all got laughably easy once I learned the proper use of the block though. A sequel bringing more of that comedy is basically what I'm looking for.
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