Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People – Episode 2: Strongbadia the Free (PC) Review
Posted by Drew Robbins on 09.16.2008
Strong Bad returns for another wacky episode.
Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People – Episode 2: Strongbadia the Free System - PC Developer - Telltale Games Publisher - Telltale Games Cool? - Quite, and at the same time, very attractive.
Telltale games have long been known for its adventure game series, Sam and Max. With the recent success of the series, Telltale decided to expand their audience with another episodic series of adventure games, leading to Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People. The series launched last month with “Homestar Ruiner,” and continues this month with a trip to the legendary Strongbadia, with “Strongbadia the Free.”
Story/Gameplay
From a gameplay perspective there really isn’t too much to Strong Bad. Everything in the game is done by pointing and clicking at objects or other characters to interact with. While this isn’t necessarily a problem, it would have been nice to include a short little mini game somewhere in there. A scene that really could have benefited from this involved Strong Bad needing to dance, where they could have easily shoved in a tiny rhythm game-esque segment. That really isn’t too big of a complaint, as most adventure games are just about the pointing and clicking, so it is hard to fault Strong Bad for not breaking the trend.
An important part to adventure games is always the puzzles it presents along the way. In Strong Bad, most puzzles involve knowing which items to use when. While the puzzles are pretty easy, you are bound to get stuck every once in a while, and when that happens Strong Bad will shout out some form of a hint.
Enough about the gameplay, time to talk about all that really matters here, the story. I’d like to start out by saying that Strong Bad is absolutely hilarious. It wasn’t video game funny, like where you simply chuckle at something, this was sitcom funny. Every five minutes one of the great characters in the game would spout out something hilarious. Of course, these jokes might not bring delight to people who haven’t watched the show. Strong Bad is definitely a game made for the fans, with so many throwbacks to great animation sketches on the main website. How funny will the normal person find Cheat Commando-o’s, or lil’ brudder, or even the “No Loafing” sign? I can’t imagine they would be as thrilled as a genuine fan of the site was when they saw some of these throwbacks.
It is all fine and dandy to be funny, but there has to be some sort of flowing storyline connecting the jokes, and there is, as you would expect if you had common sense. The game starts out with Strong Bad responding to an email about the dumbest law the King of Town has ever passed, when he gets interrupted by said king, who invokes his new email tax. Because Strong Bad can’t pay his fine, he is sentence to house arrest, which as you expect, does not last very long. Once you are free from the house, Strong Bad flees to Strong Badia to secede from Freetown, USA. Here he attempts to rally the rest of the town, but fails, leading to the rest of them seceding as well, but to their own separate countries. Unfortunately, all of these countries impede your way to overthrow the king, so Strong Bad must form an alliance with each town in his path. While some of them will alliance with you after a stern bullying, some will take a little more of your time.
The story takes about 3 hours to finish, which might not seem like much, but I must remind you, Escape from Monkey Island can be finished in an hour. Considering that this game is only 10 bucks, three hours is actually a pretty reasonable amount of time.
Graphics
It seems weird, Strong Bad in 3-dimensions? Luckily, this game pulls it off pretty well, as the characters all look pretty nice. The environments look pretty accurate, though a lot of them were bland environments to begin with. Strongbadia’s surrounding area is no more than an open field of green, which wouldn’t be a problem if the game forced you to search through that area at one point of the game. I’m reminded of the Library in Halo, where I had no idea where I was. Well, even that isn’t true. This would certainly be a bigger problem if Strong Bad were a first person game, but it isn’t, so the camera perspective will keep you from getting lost.
Sound
Everything about the sound will ring familiar to fans of the series. All of the voices are the same, and the background music during all segments should be recognizable to those who have watched the Homestar Runner cartoons. The voice work here is really great, especially Strong Bad. You will understand what I mean if you get to the Teen Girl Squad mini-game, where Strong Bad is really on the ball.
Lasting Appeal
As I mentioned earlier, Strong Bad is about a three hour experience. Even though it offers an extended play, there really isn’t much for you to do there. I’d imagine that sometime in the future, however, when you have forgotten all the jokes, that playing through this game again would be very fun. Until then, I doubt you will be playing through this more than once.
The 411
Strong Bad is a charming and humorous game that should take you no more than three hours to complete. During those three hours, you will laugh, cry (at lil’ brudder, I assume), and learn to love. Well, maybe not so much the love thing…unless you are talking about loving the Cheat. I mean, how could you not love that little guy?
Graphics
8.0
Sharp graphics that truly feel like this is how the show would look in the third dimension.
Gameplay
7.0
A fun little point and click, but that is all there is to it.
Sound
7.5
Recognizable music to fans of the show, and voice work is good.
Lasting Appeal
6.0
This game will be fun in a few years once you've forgotten all the jokes.
Fun Factor
8.0
You will be laughing a lot. Let me just reiterate...A LOT.
