Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One Review

By Dan Whitehead Published 27 May, 2008

Weathering the storm.

Version tested: Xbox 360

Given that they've spent many years lampooning and criticising the games industry and its resident buffoons, it's a bold step for Penny Arcade creators Mike 'Gabe' Krahulik and Jerry 'Tycho' Holkins to put out a game of their own. Few commentators offer up something of their own to be criticised, and they deserve credit for at least putting their name to something that can be pulled apart with the same savagery they have often displayed. The game in question doesn't quite deserve to be torn to shreds by the ravenous review wolves, but it is a surprisingly clumsy effort that - were it released by anyone else - would probably be mocked mercilessly by Penny Arcade.

The story opens in the city of New Arcadia in 1922. You create your own character from a limited palette of facial features and clothes, and then set about raking your lawn. That's when a giant robot crushes your house, and you set off in pursuit, teaming up with Penny Arcade characters Gabe and Tycho, now reinvented as the dynamic duo behind the Startling Developments Detective Agency. Together you begin tracking the mechanical monstrosity currently leaving sizable footprints all over town. A tale of rancid hobo meat, urine study, sinister mime cults and potty mouth cursing swiftly unfurls before you.

'Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One' Screenshot 1

Dialogue is often funny, but the lengthy conversations are mostly for show.

Categorising the end result can be tricky. It's structured a bit like a point-and-click adventure, but plays mostly like an RPG. There are only three small areas in the game, and you manoeuvre your trio around them much as you'd expect. Changes in camera angles are rather cutely disguised as comic panels, so as you reach the limit of one view, you flip to the next panel. Dustbins and crates litter the scenery, and can be smashed open to reveal useful items such as health boosts and other status-changing trinkets. Curiously, for a game so clearly inspired by the RPG genre, there's no shop, so the only way to restock on health kits is to tromp around the same screens, smashing the respawning crates and hoping that the random contents will provide what you need.

Basic control is disappointingly clumsy, with characters lolloping along sluggishly, often getting snagged on scenery or stymied by invisible walls. Getting them to face a specific item or area of interest can also be a fiddle, which becomes a problem when certain essential quest items are tucked away in amongst other clickable screen elements. The game isn't exactly full of puzzles - there's a character who basically tells you where to go, and the game sometimes won't even let you proceed until you've spoken with them - but the few puzzles that are here tend to be tricky because it's easy to miss items, rather than because the puzzle itself is particularly fiendish.

'Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One' Screenshot 2

The comic strip style is faithfully recreated, though the animation is basic at best.

There are numerous ongoing quests (or "cases") to follow but few really amount to anything other than long-winded ways of earning small status boosts. Collecting a set number of items, or defeating a set number of enemies, is the norm. Dialogue is plentiful, and often funny, but there are no real branching discussions - mostly you're choosing which funny thing you'd like to say to trigger the same plot-advancing responses. Basically, as both an adventure game and an RPG, it all feels a bit undercooked. This is particularly surprising given Ron "Monkey Island" Gilbert's involvement, but when you strip the game down to its framework it's a disappointingly flimsy construction.

You've probably noticed that I've got this far and haven't really commented on the combat yet. That's because combat is by far the most dominant gameplay element, and also the most problematic. The game uses a system that borrows elements from both Final Fantasy and Paper Mario. It's real-time, and each character has a timer which ticks around until they can attack again. Once it's full, you can either unleash a standard attack on an enemy, or wait for the special attack meter to fill up. Special attacks involve mashing or matching buttons to deliver extra damage, with more powerful variations earned as you level up. They can also be combined into team attacks if everyone has a full special meter. And of course you have the obligatory inventory options, from which you can select healing items, status items or special items which either damage or distract your foes. All of these rely on very small, fiddly icons and menus which will be all but unreadable to those playing on standard definition TVs. Fair warning.

Where the combat flounders is in its reliance on a very fussy blocking mechanism. Enemy attacks can be blocked by tapping a trigger button (or the space bar, for PC players) when their health bar flashes. Time it perfectly and you take no damage, and can unleash a counter attack. Time it well, and you block but still take some damage. Time it badly and you'll either get an ineffectual partial block or no block at all. Except this flash only lasts for a split second and comes at a different point in every attack animation. There's really no way to play without relying almost entirely in this system to keep you alive and purely from a gameplay point of view, it's deeply frustrating.

It means you have to keep your eyes in about nine places at once. Even though there are audio cues to let you know when attack meters are charged up, you still have to keep track of whose attack is actually ready. You then have to select that character and target their attack. Navigating inventory items or special attack options becomes a hasty fumble, compounded by tiny text, unidentified icons and slippery cursor movement. That you also have to be watching out for tiny flashes on the health bars of up to four enemies while juggling all these other elements lends combat an overwhelming and cluttered feel. You'll expend more mental energy trying to locate the info you need on the fly than actually planning any sort of coherent attack strategy.

This only gets worse once you enter the third area of the game, where enemies can take off half your health in one hit and are suddenly immune to your most powerful attacks. As for the idea of allowing characters to talk over the start of battles, obscuring huge chunks of the screen with enormous speech balloons...well, the less said the better. Literally. And yet once you memorise the attack animations for each enemy, the timing needed to block them and which attacks cause almost no damage versus those that cause enormous damage, combat suddenly becomes farcically simple. Rather than a dynamic battle system, what you actually end up with is a role-playing rhythm game that rewards rote repetition and pattern recognition over actual tactics and thought.

'Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One' Screenshot 4

The game thankfully avoids random encounters - enemies can be seen on-screen and engaged at your convenience.

Penny Arcade's saving grace is its humour, which is plentiful and almost always effective. It relies on the tone of the strip rather than the details, so those unfamiliar with Gabe and Tycho needn't worry about being left out in the cold. There are plenty of nods and in-jokes for fans, but if you don't know why those little robots enjoy sodomising citrus fruit it won't affect your ability to follow the story. This brand of comedy is certainly an acquired taste, walking a fine line between verbose wit and scatological swears, but it does enough to join the hallowed ranks of funny games that are actually funny, and I say this as someone who is lukewarm on the web comic. The portentous narrator is especially entertaining, coming off like a cross between Tom Baker and Ringo Starr. It's just a shame the sporadic NPC characters parrot the same handful of comments in linear rotation, and Penny Arcade's old habit of italicising apparently random words is still rather annoying.

It's easy to admire what Hothead has tried to produce here. A fusion of classic Western adventuring and Japanese role-playing is an enticing prospect, and one that will hopefully be better developed in future Penny Arcade games. It's fun, in a limited sort of way, but the inconsistent difficulty results in a poorly balanced and awkwardly paced lightweight RPG that relies too heavily on jokes to mask repetitive combat and uninspired fetch-quests. Fans of the comic strip can feel free to add as many points to the score below as will make them happy, since they're the ones most likely to make the effort needed to get past the flaws, but for everyone else there's little here to justify the hefty price.

6 / 10

Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One is out now on Xbox Live Arcade for 1600 Microsoft Points (GBP 13.60 / EUR 19.20) and is also available for PC from Greenhouse.

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About Dan Whitehead

Dan has been writing for Eurogamer since 2006 and specialises in RPGs, shooters and games for children. His bestest game ever is Julian Gollop's Chaos.

Read more articles from Dan by visiting the Dan Whitehead archive page.

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Comments (54) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • ManicDrunkMonk #1 4 years ago

    Everyone's clearly excited about this one!

    Oh and... First!
    Edited by 1 at 27/05/08 @ 08:17

  • Les #2 4 years ago

    "Fans of the comic strip can feel free to add as many points to the score below as will make them happy, since they're the ones most likely to make the effort needed to get past the flaws, but for everyone else there's little here to justify the hefty price."

    And what if you hate the comic? Am I free to subtract as many points from the score to make me happy? ;)

  • TripSkyway #3 4 years ago

    Really enjoyed it. Found the combat hectic but good fun.

  • gospvg #4 4 years ago

    1600 Points !!
    WTF !!

  • DanWhitehead #5 4 years ago

    And what if you hate the comic? Am I free to subtract as many points from the score to make me happy? ;)

    If you hate the comic, I think you can probably dip into the minuses.

  • jlaakso #6 4 years ago

    I'm some three hours in and really liking it so far. I am a fan of PA, but I do think I'd enjoy this regardless. The combat took some getting used to, but I like it, certainly a lot more than your usual Final Fantasy fare. It looks gorgeous, as well, although the tiny icons and typeface are a problem.

  • anomagnus #7 4 years ago

    hefty price....

    its 13 quid.

    more to the point, this felt like a review for a full game, not a downloadable game

    you gave viking 6/10 and it was 74.99....

  • DanWhitehead #8 4 years ago

    The combat took some getting used to, but I like it, certainly a lot more than your usual Final Fantasy fare.

    There was a comparison I wanted to make between this and The World Ends With You. Both have rather daunting and hectic battle systems, but once you get used to Square's offering you realise the game is actually very graceful and follows a definite rhythm. An off-kilter rhythm that not everyone will get, but there's structure behind the apparent chaos. Penny Arcade's combat is the opposite - it's just random and poorly realised. It's either incredibly simple or incredibly hard, depending on how levelled up you are and whether you've fought the same enemy before.

  • lennon #9 4 years ago

    Im not into the comic strip at all but am absolutely loving this. Quirky humour with a decent combat mechanic which rewards you for being patient. Sure the adventuring is a bit absent and the quests are not much more than things you stumble upon but I probably would have finished this already if it hadnt been for rock band something that cant be said for many of the arcade games I have purchased.

  • spongebob #10 4 years ago

    I think you need to be a gaming nerd to appreciate the humor of Penny Arcade, or maybe I just a snob. I just don't find it particularly funny. Ergo I don't want to play this game :)

  • woodnotes #11 4 years ago

    "hefty price....

    its 13 quid.

    more to the point, this felt like a review for a full game, not a downloadable game

    you gave viking 6/10 and it was 74.99...."

    And where the hell do you buy your games from !?

  • lennon #12 4 years ago

    Wouldnt be the first time I have been classified as a gaming nerd :)

    Although to be honest I just found something about it quite entertaining in the same way I found the film Crank when normally I wouldnt!

  • mallocks #13 4 years ago

    hefty price....

    its 13 quid.

    more to the point, this felt like a review for a full game, not a downloadable game

    you gave viking 6/10 and it was 74.99....

    Because clealry price is now the only quality on which games will be judged as Eurogamer. This is just another form of 'so, better than [game that scored lower] then?'

    ETA: Viking got 5/10 anyway.
    Edited by 1 at 27/05/08 @ 09:06

  • MrChaz #14 4 years ago

    Which version did you play?

    Personally I enjoyed it on the x360, the combat certainly was confusing at the start but once I got used to it and learned the position of the items it got much easier. I have to agree about the blocking mechanism - it feels unnecessarily harsh. For me I also got that lucasarts adventure feel from the text.

  • HyperShadow #15 4 years ago

    The only problem I have with this is that I finished it on the day of purchase, and it seems that there is no reason for me to go back and play it again, having maxed out all the stats and finished all the quests (doesn't seem like there are any side quests either).

    Although I won't complain after paying £10, I am a bit miffed that it seems like another short lived episodic game that took ages to come out and only has a linear path through it with no news of the next episode on the horizon apart from the trailer at the end (although HL2:E1 had that and look how long we had to wait for that).

    I guess i'm beginning to doubt the whole episodic gaming structure now, what with their long development times and short, linear end products.

  • DanWhitehead #16 4 years ago

    hefty price....

    its 13 quid.

    At 1600 points it costs double the usual XBLA price, yet there's nothing here to justify that. The previous most expensive Live Arcade game, Puzzle Quest, was only 1200 points and offered a much longer and far better designed game.

    If the ending of this episode is any indication, this is the first of four episodes. If they maintain the same pricing, that means the whole thing will cost 6,400 points - that's 77 Euros or 55 pounds.

  • DanWhitehead #17 4 years ago

    Which version did you play?

    I reviewed it from the 360 version.

  • septimus #18 4 years ago

    I quite like it. The blocking is a bit annoying, but easy enough after you see a few animations.

    And for the price you can't really go wrong if you are a PA fan (which I am).

    -edit- Bought Mac version so controls are a bit more responsive over the 360 stick.
    Edited by 1 at 27/05/08 @ 09:36

  • DanWhitehead #19 4 years ago

    The only problem I have with this is that I finished it on the day of purchase, and it seems that there is no reason for me to go back and play it again, having maxed out all the stats and finished all the quests (doesn't seem like there are any side quests either).

    It's also quite annoying that when you've completed the game, you can't go back and find anything you may have missed. Your save game locks you out of anything but a stats screen. If you want the achievements for finding all the robots and collectibles, you need to start over.

  • MrChaz #20 4 years ago

    I reviewed it from the 360 version.
    Thanks, did you notice that the save system is different between x360 and pc? The x360 only lets you (or me at least) save to a single slot but the with the PC you can make as many different ones as you like. It's also worth mentioning that the save is sealed once you finish the game so you can't go back an finish any side quests which sucks for achievement whoring.

  • penhalion #21 4 years ago

    I got this just to see if it would be worth following the episodes as with sam and max. I definitely will not be getting any more penny arcade games. The combat is plain broken. You will often be attacked while trying to select a character and having to block manually for all characters is rediculously clumsy.

    It's as if no-one at hothead played through the game themselves. There is just so much polish missing. for instance

    No auto cycle through characters when you are in combat.
    No way to use items outside of battle (how the heck did that slip through the QA net?).
    No indicator for blocking. This guarantees that you'll never block a new enemies attack successfully (sometimes costing you the fight)!

    The list goes on and on. It's like the last 20 years of rpg games from the likes of square etc. etc. never happened.

    Definitely not worth 1600 points and certainly not a good game regardless of if you like penny arcades comic strip.

  • DanWhitehead #22 4 years ago

    No way to use items outside of battle (how the heck did that slip through the QA net?).

    You don't need to use items outside of battle though, since you start each fight with full health and no status effects.

    No indicator for blocking. This guarantees that you'll never block a new enemies attack successfully (sometimes costing you the fight)!

    Do you mean there's no indicator for when to block? Because there is. It's small and very missable, and some attacks give you very little time to respond, but it's there.

  • Meho #23 4 years ago

    Dan's review echoed my feelings for the game almost to a t. It's charming and the humour is there if you like PA in their more self indulgent moments (also, it's really offensive if you don't expect scatological/ violent references and situations that are in abundance in the comic) but the adventuring is pretty hollow and the combat system is definitely ambitious but ultimately pretty frustrating. I was playing it yesterday and was thinking how it definitely compares to The World Ends With You in terms of schizophrenic attention to several details it demands from you but how in TWEWY you soon understand the rhythm beneath the chaos that lets you strategise and plan and actually win tough battles because of your skills/ wit, not just because you learned someone's attack pattern. PA's realtime combat mixed with reliance on not-so-easily-accessable menu items is a bit frustrating.

  • random_name #24 4 years ago

    I'd agree with that rating.

    Its not bad, but its too linear, unpolished and most of all, short, to justify its pricetag. I won't be getting the next episodes unless theres a boost in length and quality.

  • NickD7 #25 4 years ago

    Kings of taking the piss out of shitty games release shitty game.

    Payback is a bitch.

  • penhalion #26 4 years ago

    @DanWhitehead

    Do you mean there's no indicator for when to block? Because there is. It's small and very missable, and some attacks give you very little time to respond, but it's there.

    Really? I tried using that to time blocks and only ever got a partial block from it. On some of the stranger enemies a partial block can end your game real quick as the enemy still does 20 odd points of damage! And don't get me started on the fact that you have to wait for your characters special attack to charge up by...wait for it...not attacking at all! This works if you have a mime box to distract the mimes or a fruit for the fruit F**kers but, is useless after about the halfway point unless you have perfected the blocking to where you get the counter attack.

    I've played more than enough RPGs to make the flaws in this one painfully obvious. You yourself have just pointed out another one i.e. indicators and icons that seem designed to be missed and a confusing character sheet layout in combat

  • aniki Verified Web Developer, YoYo Games Ltd #27 4 years ago

    I've only played the demo on the PC, but having completed it on 360 I have to say I found the battle controls on the console to be much more straightforward; the fact that you had a dedicated button for each action type meant you didn't have to watch your cursor when choosing something, and I even got used to remembering which character was selected to navigate left and right between them so I didn't have to take my eyes off the enemy health bars (watching for the flash) much.

    That's quite a lot of work, though - there's no doubt it could have been much more straightforward.

    Still, I'm more than happy with the 1600 points purchase; it's a very string game in my opinion, despite some annoying puzzles (finding the vacuum tube took more time than it really should have), and I'll be replaying Episode 1 a couple of times before the second installment lands later this year.

  • Markusdragon #28 4 years ago

    It's one of those rare games where the writing frequently outshines the actual gameplay, so if you play it for it's wit and charm, you'll probably fail to notice the fact that it plays like a budget title.

  • MrChaz #29 4 years ago

    @penhalion
    The flash happens at the same point in the attack animation, it's just a case of learning although the window of opportunity does get very small against the higher level enemies.

  • dk_rare #30 4 years ago

    Looks like it is easy to rip on games, but hard to actually make a good game yourself.

  • gaselite #31 4 years ago

    "and Penny Arcade's old habit of italicising apparently random words is still rather annoying."

    Oh god, tell me about it.

  • JeroenZM #32 4 years ago

    People who still shout 'First!' in the year 2008 should be banned. Actually, those people should've been banned from the beginning altogether.

  • rhubarbandcustard #33 4 years ago

    Not only is Penny Arcade desperately unfunny, but have any of you heard the creators of Penny Arcade on a podcast? Arrogant tossers.

  • miiiguel #34 4 years ago

    Les hates everything but himself. Fact.

  • muscleblade #35 4 years ago

    Les wrote "And what if you hate the comic? Am I free to subtract as many points from the score to make me happy? ;) "

    No because you hate almost anything so thats not fair is it. Moron.

  • Wyrm #36 4 years ago

    Penny Arcade has never made me laugh once, I only ever end up wondering how they could be so popular by being so weak.

  • sneetch #37 4 years ago

    gaselite
    ""and Penny Arcade's old habit of italicising apparently random words is still rather annoying."

    Oh god, tell me about it. "

    They italicise for emphasis, not randomly. I'm italicising randomly, like the written version of Captain Kirk.

    Edit: Hmmm... italics eat spaces for some reason.
    Edited by 1 at 27/05/08 @ 11:09

  • DanWhitehead #38 4 years ago

    Using italics for emphasis is standard practice in comics, but Penny Arcade often overuses it and place the emphasis weirdly.

  • BBIAJ #39 4 years ago

    @ HyperShadow:

    I've read that a further two episodes at least are due quarterly.

  • newt #40 4 years ago

    "poorly balanced and awkwardly paced lightweight RPG that relies too heavily on jokes to mask repetitive combat and uninspired fetch-quests"

    Weird. I found the balance perfect and was very surprised that this thing stands on its own as a game, not just a PA joke vehicle.

  • czottmann #41 4 years ago

    Bought it for my Mac via Greenhouse, for two reasons:

    1. I like using my mouse for, y'know, the pointing and clicking. The gamepad somehow doesn't feel right.
    2. I can pay with PayPal. The game costs $20. In real money, that's ~€13. Much better price.

  • jlaakso #42 4 years ago

    "1. I like using my mouse for, y'know, the pointing and clicking. The gamepad somehow doesn't feel right. "

    Except there's no pointing and clicking on the 360 version. You walk with the left stick and hit A to interact when you're near something interesting.

  • DAL9000 #43 4 years ago

    @Les: "And what if you hate the comic?"

    Why am I not surprised? Dude, do you actually LIKE anything? If so, what? Seriously. I really want to know.

  • spookyzombie #44 4 years ago

    The combat reminds me of the Paper Mario. I thought this looked quite good until I realised that they literally wanted to rape me with the price of it. If 1600 points equates to £12, I'd rather buy preowned stuff from Gamestation (COD2 is £7.99, Conedemned £7.99 etc).

  • anomagnus #45 4 years ago

    @ woodnotes

    sorry, that was euros

    @ mallocks

    i'm simply saying, the cost of something should be a factor in the final rating. haze is apparently a monster, but if it cost 15 quid, wouldn't it be worth a go

    this was an xbla game, no one expected it to be Final Fantasy 7. If its good, its a bargain, thats all i'm saying

  • lennon #46 4 years ago

    Ive found the blocking really quite easy to the point where I can get a good few counter attacks in during most battles. It does become tougher against the later enemies but its really not that hard. I am of course using the 360 version which may or may not be eaiser.

  • Bumbuliuz #47 4 years ago

    There are 2 problems with the game for me. One is that the price is too high in my opininion. And the second is that I cant even download the demo nor buy the game, because I happen to live in a European country that hasn't got Official Xbox Live yet :(

  • Svecke #48 4 years ago

    @lennon

    It's quite easy to block on the PC-version too. Sure, there's the initial difficulty when you encounter a new enemy to time the blocks right, but you eventually get the hang of it as you learn their pattern.

    Curiously I had no idea that there was some blinking cue for when the foe attacked. I just watched the attack animation of the enemy and hit space when I thought the attack would connect. It worked like a charm.

  • czottmann #49 4 years ago

    @jlaakso: "Except there's no pointing and clicking on the 360 version." I know. I've compared the 360 demo and the Mac/PC demo and found the latter is more to my taste. *shrug*

  • will. #50 4 years ago

    I'm finding it quite good fun.

    I've discovered a little secret though. Don't try and play the whole thing in one go. I've been playing about 30 minutes every so often and it's a great little bit of fun to break up a day of work. There are few games that I can play constantly without taking a break (Call of duty 4 is a recent one that comes to mind, but Mafia was a game that kept me glued to my computer for a whole day and most of the night) and attempting to (play for hours) is sure to drive anyone crazy. I think you've given a fair review in most parts, but I can't help but think that sometimes reviewers need to stop playing games in one sitting and actually play them like the end consumer is likely to experience the game.

  • DanWhitehead #51 4 years ago

    I think you've given a fair review in most parts, but I can't help but think that sometimes reviewers need to stop playing games in one sitting and actually play them like the end consumer is likely to experience the game.

    Sadly, deadlines mean that reviewers will always be playing a game faster than most people, but a good game is a good game and shouldn't be diminished by constant play. Quite the opposite, in fact.

    And I actually played this in chunks from Wednesday through to Sunday, not in one sitting.

  • evilbert #52 4 years ago

    lennon said:
    "Ive found the blocking really quite easy to the point where I can get a good few counter attacks in during most battles. It does become tougher against the later enemies but its really not that hard"

    +1
    Maybe you other guys need to work on your reflexes. :)
    I finished this last night on pc and really enjoyed it. I love the comic too and would have given this an eight. Humour was great, combat just right and only €13 on pc? Well worth it.

    Oh and from now on, I demand that every fucking game I fucking play has a fucking swear word in every fucking sentence. :)

  • crazymonkey66 #53 4 years ago

    6? i'm having a blast with this game. love the humor, combat's not that bad and for gods sake: its a frikking penny arcade game. doesn't get more awesome than that. can kinda understand how non-fans won't like it but...

  • dryden555 #54 4 years ago

    I loved the humor and the combat is enoyable enough. Easily gets an 8 from me. It should be cheaper though.

  • Malazan #55 4 years ago

    I've been really enjoying this! Looking forward to the next episode once I finish it. :)