Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One
I don’t know which captivated my attention first, the trailer, or the tongue-firmly-in-cheek advertisements using negative reviews from comment trolls such as “this game sucks and anyone who likes it sucks. penny arcade sucks and is as funny as something that’s not funny at all,” but I found something absolutely captivating in the marketing for Penny Arcade’s On the Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One, and found myself compelled to give it a try.
Set in 1922, in the town of New Arcadia, the game includes familiar faces to fans of the Penny Arcade comic, and includes all of the wit, charm, and in-jokes you’ve come to expect from the comic. And, of course, every one’s favorite rapacious robot with a hard on for fruit, which combined with some of the tools and weaponry you’ll be using gives the whole game a very steampunk vibe. (Okay, a rake isn’t very steampunk, but you’ll lose that before long!)
You, in case you were wondering, are a turn of the century home owner whose house is destroyed by a giant metal creature being hotly pursued by our favorite two-dimensional duo, Gabe and Tycho, and together (along with a rather useless cat) you must fight this iron giant and his little, rude underlings.
The game play is awkward on my MacBook, which is to say that charging up attacks is sometimes a slower process than it would be with a controller, and I had to switch to my Mighty Mouse sometime early on in the game for comfort’s sake. Battles are turn-based team play, which sometimes makes the game play seem drawn out. But the storyline is solid and full of a lot good, laugh out loud jokes that make the comic entertaining, so much so that avid fans may find the $20 price tag almost like stealing the game! If you’re a fan of longer games with a straight-forward plotline, however, you might want to steer clear, or at least wait for Episode Two.
-M. Elizabeth Williams
Tags: microtransactions, penny arcade
