PAX exhibition is packed to the gills with booths, their developers, a few dressed up babes, and a bulging current of us nerds serving as the lifeblood in its passageways. Saturday turned out to be, seemingly, more overflowing with people than Friday and yet I thought I had seen everything. Then Chris meets me at 12:15 in front of the main theater, to wait in line for Penny Arcade's "Draw a Comic plus Q&A" session, and tells me about DeathSpank.
"You liked TorchLight, so this is something else you should check out. It's made by HotHead games who also did -"
"-PA's game!"
"Yup."
And so I did. It may share some smidgen of similarity to TorchLight, but it is almost entirely its own thing. It's cartoony, but favors a flat "popped up" look. It's a third-person perspective in 3D, but the environment is rolled on a sphere (think Populous 3). It has an inventory, but that's also shared with your abilities. And control is more button-oriented than keyboard/mouse.
I didn't take any pictures of or at their booth, because I thought there'd be a gallery on their website. The artwork reminds me of colored sketches. It's all filled in, but has kind of a sharpness and grittiness to it. Labels and numbers are set on a rounded line, like a rising sun, which matches the rest of the environment excellently. Since the whole thing is spherical, it must have made for other weird complications, but it must have simplified view distance. You can never see too far, because the horizon bends out of sight.
Arcade sounds make the combat all the more kinetic, although their isn't a ton of engagement between you and your foes. You swing, they get hurt, vice versa, etc. As opposed to more fighting-style games where you tend to zero in on one opponent and feel like there is serious physicality occurring between the objects. This isn't to say it's terribly disconnected feeling, but it's definitely more of a "lightness" to it.
Your main character and NPC's all have very distinctive personalities and archetypes that go beyond just look and movement. Conversations highlight your mental and vocal differences of people. The main one they demonstrated was an old man known as "Ulrich the Retired", maybe it was Elrick. Anyway, some kind of "rick". DeathSpank (who you play) is very brave, slightly air-headed, and righteous so much as I can tell whereas the crusty one rolling around a walker is vainly nostalgic and not shy about telling you how great he used to be. The dialog, which you advance through the typical list of choices, is dry but silly.
"Who are you calling old man?"
"You are a man, and you are old. But mostly just old."
It works, if only because the voice acting is very entertaining by itself.
Having been made by HotHead, I'm fairly sure it will be available on all major platforms which means it'll be a perfect couch game to plop on my PS3. I don't know when the release is, but I'm definitely going to keep my eye out for it!
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