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PLATFORM: PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade

RELEASE DATE: 13th July 2010 (PSN), 14th July 2010 (XBLA)

RATING: 12 – Violence + Bad Language (PEGI)

DEVELOPER: Hothead Games

PUBLISHER: Electronic Arts

DeathSpank is a new RPG comedy type game available only by digital download on the PlayStation Store and Xbox Live Marketplace for only £9.99. Built by Hothead Studios, who cancelled the third instalment in a popular series known as the Penny Arcade Adventures (which was probably due to development of this game), DeathSpank aims to provide a relatively easy to get into adventure about a stereotypical hero on his perilous quest to get back an artifact – known only as The Artifact. The question is, does it achieve it? And is it worth the £10 price tag?

As said above, the game starts you off near the end of a quest to find The Artifact and you, DeathSpank are just a few minutes’ walk away from getting your heroic hands on it, if it weren’t for a demon witch withholding the exact location where it rests, it’s when you first talk to the Demon Witch and DeathSpank booms: “Greetings, Demon Witch. I am DeathSpank. Hero to the downtrodden. Vanquisher of evil. Dispenser of justice…” in an exaggerated Captain Quark voice that you realise how cheesy yet funny this game is going to be.

It is genuinely fun to talk to random people about their problems just so you can choose some hilarious options. On your early travels, you meet a ‘Wise Cow’ to which DeathSpank can ask (if you choose to do so): Teach me the way of the warrior four legged friend; which results in a reply of munching and cow noises. There are even some references to some of Ron Gilbert’s other games – namely The Secret of Monkey Island. You’ll find this sort of humour a regular occurrence, and it probably makes this game the funniest I’ve played. Of course, how funny you find it depends on your sense of humour, some people will be on the floor laughing, whereas others will probably get irritated by the constant hot air coming out of DeathSpank’s mouth.

The Side-Quests will have you hunting for guts, looking for books, and helping an adventure scared of almost everything.

One thing this game isn’t meant for though, is having the main storyline being played constantly. There are over 50 side quests for you to keep busy doing, and they really increase the length of the game. You’ll probably have to look for trivial items, several examples being: Demon Poop, a Mushroom Disguise, and a Sock (yes, just a sock). But seeing DeathSpank take it all so seriously and bring out cutting remarks such as “Do chickens even have lips?” to which a reply comes: “Of course they do. How else would they whistle?” really makes playing the sidequests very worthwhile.

Almost everything you do will earn you XP, and the quests will reward you the most. As per usual for an RPG, once you get a certain amount of XP, you level up. Each time DeathSpank levels up, his basic stats increase (attack, defence, health etc.) and you can select one of three choices for a bonus increase – this can be anything from having a longer blocking time, to being able to run around the map faster.

The other RPG-ish element of the game is the equipment menu, where you can equip up to eight weapons, plus the traditional helmet, shoulders, body and feet. Like any RPG worth its salt, each weapon or piece of armour has a defence or attack stat which you can use to decide which is the best to equip. The game can also automatically equip the best armour that you have in your inventory, which saves a lot of time too.

One problem I did encounter all too often further through the game though was that the inventory filled up really quickly. You can recycle all of your equipment into cash using a grinder machine, but it takes a lot longer than it should to move each individual item into the grinder, and before you know it your inventory is full again anyway.

Combat is simple and, for the most part, effective.

The combat is pretty simple but it is open to more complexity should the more advanced players want to use more strategy. Each weapon you have equipped is mapped to a button on the face of the controller – up, down, left, right, circle, square, etc. – when you press that button, you hit ahead of you with that weapon.

As the adventure carries on, you are introduced to some more complex mechanics such as chaining, where attacking with a different weapon on each hit deals more damage. As much as these expansions to combat do help to make it more involved and strategic, I still found myself tiring of the button mashing eventually – even though the difficulty does increase towards the end game, requiring a little more strategy to be used.

The voice acting is absolutely spot on. Michael Dobson (the voice of DeathSpank) has really gotten into the role of DeathSpank, making it enjoyable to converse with other characters. Not that Michael Dobson is the only good voice in the game, all of the characters have quirky voices and funny things to say, and this is what makes this game shine.

Sadly, the same can’t be said for the music. Although for the most part it is ok, it does tend to get on your nerves as the same sort of tune plays for most areas, with a few differing tracks if you head to an evil forest or a demon mine or something like that, however there just isn’t enough variation for the music to really come alive.

The environments are varied, the music isn't.

Overall, the game should provide you with at least 8 hours of solid questing, but if you want to go and branch off by doing side quests (which I whole-heartedly recommend) you’ll double the playtime, and simultaneously probably double your enjoyment of the game. The trophies are pretty simple and should be completed in one full playthrough of the game – Killing 2500 enemies, reaching level 20, and completing 50 side quests should all come naturally if you’re thorough in your play style. The addition of co-op play also makes for more fun, a second player can drop in locally at any time in the game, making the experience slightly easier as well as great fun if you enjoy playing with others. The camera keeps up well with both players, and if the second player wanders off screen it automatically teleports them to DeathSpank (this can also be done manually).

DeathSpank provides a hilarious look at the life of a ridiculous, self-centred, egotistical hero. Not only are the jokes genuinely funny, they are also delivered perfectly by superb voice acting. The graphics provide two-and-a-half dimensions of fun, with some really cool comic-type cutscenes. The main story is of adequate length, but the mounds of side quests are well worth doing, if only to see DeathSpank speak some more amusing drivel and to spend another quarter of an hour trying to find an old tree his favourite book.

The further you progress through the adventure, the more DeathSpank loses its sheen, and although the combat does get slightly more complex, it stays pretty simple and can become mundane as the hours clock up. If you’ve got a tenner lying around that you need to spend, and you feel like spending about fifteen hours playing a game full of quality dialogue and some mildly entertaining gameplay, this is the game to spend it on.