Access Denied! Attracive People Only.
It's been a long time since I played my last "adventure game". You see, PC gaming is half-dead and most people do not want to think while playing, they just want to blow stuff up real good. I remember the time when LucasArts made a new adventure game every year, and the level of wrtiting and presentation pretty much equalled today's Pixar animated movies. I mean while their games had fantastic art-design and were technically impressive, they also had awesome cinematic stories and some very neat dialogue. The Monkey Island series, Full Throttle, and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis come to my mind as prime LucasArts products from mid-90s.
But then those games stopped being profitable (in North America, at least) and LucasArts started making more and more action games. Adventure gaming is only a limited market niche with most adventure games coming from Europe. Then comes Telltale Games, a game developer consisting of ex-LucasArts employees who have worked there in the golden days, working out of every single paradigm accepted for modern games. They only produce episodic adventure games, with limited-but-good-enough technology serving storyt telling. Ever since I saw the Sam & Max "series" emerge I wanted to dive into Telltale Games but I guess I've been busy playing the action games I blame others for playing. I bought the first season of Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People for 34.99 from Telltale's website yesterday, and got through the first episode titled Homestar Ruiner last night in one sitting. As an adventure game, it is very simple and dumbed down, but as an exprience, its just as awesome as Strong Bad's mask.
At first the limited control over the character felt kind of weird, but after a few minutes I was clicking on items and thinking about the next 2 or three puzzles. The story is funny and the dialogue is well written. I had never seen a Strong Bad cartoon in my life, but this game made me interested to go and see them. I said before puzzles are dumbed down and that is very true. There is no sense of "Oh, maybe this two items will work", you always know what is the answer to the puzzle is. You never try, but you always get the answer. The characters are awesome, especially Coach Z reminded me of my high school gym teacher, Mr. D!
The point-and-click controls feel a little clunky at times. They lack the precision a game like Runaway offers, but I guess it's because they were simultanously developing for the PC and Wii. The world is not very detailed, like LucasArts games. It is very simple and all usable items stand out for you to see them. Then again the game is based on a Flash-cartoon series and a detailed world would be against the source material
All things considered Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive is a great exprience. As a game it is not that great, but as an exprience it is funny and awesone. If LucasArts games were Pixar movies, then Telltale games could be compared to a good The Simpsons episode.
