Welcome to day two of this Alternative to E3 2014, replacing day one of the expo itself. I realise that's confusing, but I figure it's their fault for insisting on this "day 0" nonsense in the first place. You'll all be glad to know that today's game -- from decent, sadly decedent and Infocom-descendant Legend Entertainment -- is a heck of a lot funnier than I am. I might as well not have to worry about the jokes today. Thank you, Legend, for allowing me to even lazier than usual.
Superhero League of Hoboken
Straight out of post-apocalyptic New Jersey (though you can barely tell the difference), it's the Superhero League of Hoboken, a superhero parody originally written in-house by Steve Meretzky: a legendary figure of adventure games (on par with Al Lowe and Ron Gilbert, if in talent but not in renown) who made his big break at Infocom and became the guy behind many of Legend's earlier Interactive Fiction games. SLoH, in a novel twist from the usual graphic adventures, is also a turn-based RPG of the Dragon Quest kind. The player's team of superheroes are often forced to tangle with random encounters in the ruined New Jersey landscape between key locations, taking down goofy and vaguely satirical monsters that wouldn't be out of place in a Shigesato Itoi joint. We're talking classics 90s humor for the most part, so the humor skews a little closer to The Tick and Freakazoid, helped considerably by the not-so-incredible Superhero League and their meager powers.
But hey, don't take my word for it. I took the liberty of screencapping the amazing intro for this game, which also doubly serves as exposition and instructions on how the game is played. Check it out:
Part 0: With Minor Power, Comes Minor Responsibility
Oh, I get it. Actually, let's not do any subs for this intro, it's all fairly self-explanatory. I'll see you in Part 1, I guess?
Part 1: The Superhero League of Hoboken: Some Assembly Required
So now we start in earnest. If you recall back to Death Gate, a lot of this GUI should be familiar to you. The arrows are for navigation (the center two for are ascending or descending floors), we have a set of default commands and there's a handy Undo button for dumb mistakes.Even the inventory system is the same, though you'll notice our chiseled physique has replaced Death Gate's magic spells symbol. The Crimson Tape icon is used to talk with your party members, and the lightning bolt underneath allows you to employ any of their powers to solve puzzles.Man, I love the writing in this game already, even for minor shit like this background sign. Periodic table jokes, that's the calibre we're dealing with. The lunchroom it leads to is where we can access the party screen, adding or removing members as we see fit. We can only have four for right now, but that number will grow (as will the stock of superheroes to choose from) as we complete missions.The storage is where everything goes if you switch heroes. It stores inventory items and equipment both, because of course this game is an RPG. You can see on the left what I'm holding, and anything with a plus is currently equipped. You can have up to ten pieces of armor (one for each part of the body, though unfortunately there's no paper doll to make that side of things easier) and two weapons, one for ranged and one for melee. The game uses a row system, with ranged attacks only for those at the back, but it's a little strange. We'll get to that in the next part, the amount of time I'm spending here.Here's a closer look at our hero, The Crimson Tape. As the protagonist and leader of the Superhero League of Hoboken, he's the only character you're forced to use the entire game. His superpower of creating organizational charts is effectively useless, but he's a good all-rounder stats-wise.We're taking with us the Iron Tummy, as a secondary fighter with a potentially useful skill. Well, maybe. The most I can say is that I'm envious of it.RoboMop's another good brawler and an awful pun, but superheroing can be messy work and we'll need sentient household cleaners out there.Mademoiselle Pepperoni is more of a ranged mage class, and we need someone to fill out the back row as we're already stacked with melee fighters. That superpower though... the endless possibilities.Once they're with you, you can interact with anyone in your party. It's usually Elder Scrolls type commands, like "eat this thing" or "use your power", but you can sass them too. It's actually unnecessary to go to this screen, since you can choose to give anything you eat to another party member and use a separate shortcut to use their superhero abilities. Still, it's one of those things you're used to seeing in CRPGs.There's a weird museum in the basement, which holds all sorts of Hoboken historical memorabilia.In particular, we have this creepy waxwork Frank Sinatra.For some reason he has a compartment in his butt that houses a Sinatra mixtape. Might as well bring it with us.Aw man, I wanted to ride the train. At least I stole that painting.Upstairs we bump into our equivalent of the Bat Computer, or I guess Watchtower if we're going full hog into this Superhero League stuff. There's various tools every hardworking superhero needs up here: a supercomputer that dispenses missions, a news console and a couple of maps of the area.We actually have to go fill in the maps as we explore and, as you can see, it's a pretty big world out there. Each section holds different locations to visit, but the further you go away from HQ the harder the monsters will get. It's an effective way to stop you wandering into territory you don't need to visit yet. The "Chaos" function tells you the strength of the enemies in each sector, once you've added said area to the map.Oh man. Rorie, look away now. (The news ticker doesn't seem to have any purpose, at least not yet.)So each "chapter" of the game is split into groups of five missions. Once I beat these five, which are usually linked in some way (I might need an item I find in one mission area in another), I'll be "promoted" a class and be allowed more heroes in my group. I'll also get another five missions.Any mission can be accessed for more information including, ideally, where I'm supposed to go to accomplish it. This precarious Limburger Bomb scenario is actually one space away from HQ, but that doesn't mean I'm at the point where I can resolve it. Defusing a bomb made out of a giant block of cheese won't be easy.Dr Entropy, as the starting screed explained, is our Dr Doom. In fact, their names are pretty much synonymous. He'll pop up every so often with a new supervillain scheme we'll have to thwart. There's no priority rating for any of these missions, nor an actual time limit from what I can tell, so I'll stop that fiend in the fullness of time. You know, eventually.Oh hey, it might just be we have a hero with us that can help with this. A lot of the game's puzzles rely on the talents of your team, so it's best not to dismiss their skills. No matter how seemingly trivial.
Parts 2 and 3 coming soon! Thanks for reading so far.
