DeathSpank

DeathSpank is an action RPG developed by Hothead Games in collaboration with Ron Gilbert (of Monkey Island fame). Although the game is described as being Diablo-esque with spatterings of Monkey Island, the game pulls its punches with both of these elements and never reaches its full potential.
 
You play as DeathSpank, hero to the downtrodden, etcetera etcetera, a dense meathead of a hero that has dedicated his life to being a hero worthy of an ancient artifact known only as The Artifact. DeathSpank, as a character, is a caricature of a cliché RPG hero: if any random person needs something doing, no matter how morally questionable, he'll accept the task and will typically solve it by killing and breaking everything in his path. 
 
With a stiff and squarejawed demeanour and a voice reminiscent of Captain Qwark from the Ratchet and Clank series, DeathSpank pulls off the righteous hero act to a fault, but his writing is very inconsistant. At times you will love him for his loveabley dopey misinterpretations and nuances, but at times you will hate him for being too straightedge and boring. For every funny line, there are at least three 'yes, I can deliver your package!' The NPC's of the game fare similarly, with a few memorable NPC's among a sea of cookie-cutter-peasants-with-problems. The humour of DeathSpank is very deliberate, filled with a mixture of lame puns and silly non sequitors, topped off with a sprinkling of both direct and indirect references. As noted above, the writing is inconsistant, making the wait for a joke all the more disheartening when some fall flat. There are moments of brilliance in DeathSpank, and some will surely appreciate its pun-filled dialogue and menu tooltips, but you probably shouldn't expect to be rolling around laughing at each turn.
 
The basic mechanics of DeathSpank are very typical of an action RPG like this: you roll around the land, bashing things with your increasingly epic weapons and hoping your increasingly epic armour will protect you from the brunt of most attacks, picking up gold, potions, tin cans and loot along the way. As well as the main story quest of saving the orphans (and stuffing them in a bag), NPC's in the land will provide you with sidequests to do which reward you with experience, gold and/or loot. Most of these quests are simple kill/collect fetchquests, but there are a few that have some sort of puzzle or clever trick behind them, which I really wish there were more of. 
 
The differences in DeathSpank are in the small details. You can equip up to four weapons, each mapped to a face button on the controller, which gives you quick access to weapons with elemental properties and special moves without having to switch out constantly. Hitting enemies will build your 'Justice Meter' which, when full, will let you unleash the special properties of one of your purple-named epic weapons, which range from wide sweeping attacks that knock enemies back, to massively damaging single target strikes, and more besides. Alternating between weapons when you attack will build up combos that increase your rate of Justice, allowing you to unleash these powerful attacks more frequently. The game can auto-equip the best armour on you, which is handy since the inventory, while serviceable, is hardly user-friendly when it comes to comparing a new piece of armour with the one you're wearing. There is a handy grinder in your inventory for grinding unwanted loot into money, saving you the trip to an NPC to sell off your trash.

While it has some neat little additions, the gameplay is still very grass-roots action RPG when it comes down to it. How the combat generally boiled down to for me was: Is it weak? Hit it in melee. Is it strong? Circle strafe around it while shooting until it dies. The game can feel imbalanced between shooting and melee sometimes, as getting into close combat with more than a couple of enemies can quickly kill you, forcing you to use your limited supply of potions (you can only carry 5 of them at once) or run away and eat some food before coming back for another go. Some of the bosses can seem unfair at times, but they can typically be muscled through with the help of an inventory full of potions and some careful blocking. The leveling system is fairly shallow, giving you the choice of three Hero Cards each level which give you passive bonuses, such as small increases in damage or the ability to wear armor one level higher than your own. As you level up and pick the same cards they will become more powerful, but this is the extent of customization. The itemization is fairly lacklustre as well, with armor limited to increasing your health, with some giving you a small resistance to certain types of damage. The weapons are similarly simple, either having a special ability, an element, or none of the above, and most are simply given better stats and different names as you gain levels and keep the same skin as they go up in strength.  
 
The artstyle and presentation of DeathSpank are also simplified, but in a good way. The game uses an Animal Crossing-like rolling world effect that keeps the focus on DeathSpank and alleviates the need to move the camera so you can focus on the action. The world is colourful, vibrant and varied, with its backdrops looking like painted cardboard cutouts. There are spots where you will inexplicably walk through a tree or stand off the edge of a cliff because the pathing was drawn a little too wide, but these are minor things and in all the artstyle comes together and looks great with no performance hiccups to speak of. The enemy and character designs are unique and varied (well, apart from all the peasants) and the voice acting is generally good (why are peasants always British, anyway?). The menus are serviceable, for a console RPG, and the tooltips for items and quest descriptions are full of the same silly pun-filled humour the dialogue has.
 
The limited scope of the combat and surrounding mechanics and the inconsistancy of the writing give off the impression that the developers were pulling their punches, and considering this was going to be an episodic series it may be easy to see why. With the episodic releases now apparently defunct, what you're left with is a game that just feels like its best material was saved for a later episode, with large gaps between jokes and only a couple of adventure-game-like puzzles. Despite its shortcomings, though, the game is a good length and a decent action RPG romp if you're a fan of the genre and will enjoy the overtly silly humour it delivers. 
 
Just don't expect a Diablo or a Monkey Island out of it and you should be alright.