Review on Strong Bad's Game

Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People
Review by Pokelord-EX

Considering Bahamut, Omega and Ana-Vixen have all done reviews of their own, I thought I could get in on the action, and considering I have been playing this game specifically for the past several days I thought it would be appropriate to make a review on a totally different kind of game, the point-and-click adventure for the Wii-Ware available on the Wii-Shop. I’m talking of course about “Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People”

Introduction

www.homestarrunner.com/

Above is the home of a beloved Internet cartoon series, made by the Brother Chaps (or Chapman Brothers Mike and Matt), this is where all the magic happens. The series is about an armless athlete named Homestar Runner and his pals, as they get up to all sorts of bizarre and random situations, its kind of hard to explain exactly what its about, but once you’ve watched a few cartoons from there you will see just what I mean. Most of these cartoons are about some masked wrestler(?) named Strong Bad who answers e-mails from random people who ask him silly questions and he answers them in creative ways.

The series has lasted a very long time, its one of the most original and organic series on the Internet, which is a big tell-apart from the countless video game parodies and gross porno shorts that have been flooding Newgrounds for years. So the weird thing being, combining with Tell-Tale Games, they made a game series out of it, in the form of “Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People” or “SBCG4AP” for short.

According to the Chapman’s themselves, this is the biggest thing they have ever done for the series, and the only thing they have done outside of their website, so how does this game hold out?

Start-up

The game is available on the Wii-Shop, which for me is a good thing because I do not want to waste my time signing into websites just for one-off purchases and never go back, and this is Tell-Tale Games, who brought us the “Sam & Max” games for the Wii, so I was surprised to see Strong Bad on the menu.

A Problem however, is that the game is divided into 5 episodes (more on that later), and each episode is 1000 Wii-Points each, that’s a total of £35 for the entire game, not only that, they take up too many blocks (over 300 I last recall), I had to delete a few other games on my Nintendo Wii just to store all 5, so they take up a lot of space, I recommend an SD card separate for this game.

About the game

The game is divided into five episodes, a distribution method that has been used in the Sam and Max games made by the same producers as well as the recent Wii game “One Piece Unlimited Cruise”, each episode was released monthly to keep gamers occupied whilst they make the next one, each episode has a different story but is relatively the same game altogether. The episodes are as follows…

Homestar Ruiner
Strong Badia the Free
Baddest of the Bands
Dangeresque: the Criminal Projective
8-Bit is Enough

Each episode is the same, you are in control of Strong Bad as you travel around all the places seen in the cartoons, such as Bubs stand and Marzipan’s house, even Club Technochocolate. You go around collecting items and looking under boxes and talking to the many familiar faces for information. I’d explain each episode in detail but that would take too long and would involve spoilers, but to wrap it up short, each episode is a different scenario and brings old favourites into the 3D, such as Homsar, Senior Cardgage and even Stinkoman (much to my surprise).

This game is loaded with many hilarious moments and references, some you may only get if you’ve watched a decent amount of the cartoons on their website, but there are a fair amount of jokes you may get anyway, I sensed a Pokemon reference in one scene, and a little of He-Man and Wonder Twins in another. Even so, its fun to see the same magic that have made the series so famous, it is for all intent of purposes a feature-length Homestar Runner cartoon, one that will keep you entertained.

One obvious plus is the voice acting, by Matt Chapman and Missy Palmer, the later being the voice of Marzipan, the former…well…everyone else. I did see Mike Chapman getting a voice role in the last episode, but its mostly Matt Chapman. Not to say the game would have been made without them, but Matt Chapman has always done his best in providing the vocals for Strong Bad, Homestar and many others, and this game is no exception. The way most of the jokes are delivered (mainly from Strong Bad himself) were spot on which I think make this unique from the cartoons, of course to hear Strong Bad rant about the games flaws (such as unlimited inventories and un-clickable objects) you can tell Chapman was having alot fun with this one. Being a Marzi-fan I’ve always wanted to see an interview with Missy Palmer concerning her views, because I sensed a small difference in tone, mostly in episode 4. Not to say she wasn’t as great as she ever was, she was fantastic as Marzipan. Voice acting never failed once, which is another good reason the game is worth checking out.

Gameplay

Remember the good old days of Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion? Where you have to point and click at things and solve puzzles and talk to people? This is the same kind of thing, just with Homestar Runner characters. Its one of those games where you have to use your imagination to wonder what your supposed to do, like if you see a hedge tree, and you have a pair of hedge-clippers, the obvious thing to do is cut that tree. Though there are times where I am wondering around forever trying to figure out what I am supposed to do, a big example is when I have to show Marzipan some bats, but then I realise you have to “modify” them (I cannot spoil how you do so), its annoying. Another hard moment is when Dangeresque is in the car and you have to avoid “Killingyouguy” (Strong Mad), he was so annoying to get past.

It’s hard to give it a difficulty rating, since these kind of games don’t really have one, if you are patient enough to use your brain to the full extent then I’d say its worth going through, if you want action-packed adventures where you are mashing buttons then this isn’t for you.

There are some nifty gameplay moments however, such as the track in episode 1, where you have to move your Wii Remote to walk over a log, I thought that was pretty cool, and along with that you can also play cool mini-games, such as Snake Boxer and Algebros, another nifty feature put into the game which was fun to look at.

Another feature put into the game (and for all episodes) is the dressing room, where you can put Strong Bad into many stylish outfits, most of them based on costumes he had worn in the cartoons such as the work outfit. Some outfits are also hidden treasures hidden throughout each episode, enabling more customisation and allowing more outfits to try. Once your dressed up you can go on a photo-shoot and send your pictures to friends, kind of like the added feature on the Wii-Ware’s Pokemon Snap. It’s not necessary to the games plot, but a nice side bonus, and its fun to see Strong Bad do cheesy poses.

A Flaw with the game that I had happened to notice is the way you walk around, it’s a problem that can also be said with Monkey Island or Indiana Jones but you are constantly clicking your Wii Remote to move around, click once and he will only move to where you clicked, if you want him to explore a bigger place (like Strong Badia) then you have to constantly click A to keep moving, which can be repetitive and annoying. Also, if you are not precise with your remote, he will walk in a random direction, so you have to treat your moves like a sniper rifle if you want Strong Bad to pick up items that are usually smaller than the pointer. The same applies to talking, I feel like I had clicked on an option until I find out I accidentally clicked outside the talk box forcing me to end the conversation, which is also annoying.

Another annoyance is that there is no pause button for cut scenes, which considering my Nintendo Wii is downstairs and my mom is on the phone, I have to either wait for her to finish talking before I dare engage in any activity, or cope with it and miss important dialog. It didn’t happen often, but its an issue I needed to address.

If you can bare the flaws though, its fun to use the Remote in a totally new fashion, and to hear such immortal lines from my favourite characters is the biggest reward of all.

Graphics

Of course, the main reason this game was bought (and probably everyone else), to see all of my favourite characters in 3D! I’ve gotta say, the way they recreated these characters is stunning, but at the same time they have seemed to keep it to the original stylings of the cartoons. Most notably Homestar Runner and Homsar, you may notice their chins seem to be on one side of their faces, the same applies here and often relies on “snaps” (as I call them) for turning and facing, rather than seeing them turn 360 degrees like you would expect. When it comes to turning, only Strong Bad, Pom Pom, Marzipan, Strong Mad, the King of Town and the Poopsmith seem to pull it off with no trouble, but the Cheat is another story, in that (although still 3D and still cool) you only see the front and the back. Apart from that, I like how the characters move and watching memorable cut-scenes this way was entertaining to watch.

Everything else though keeps the same toon flash style of the cartoons but look really impressive, its worth it if you want to see Bubs Stand, the drive-thru Whale and the world of Strong Badia in the 3D, true eye candy and if nothing else, the graphics are worth looking at.

Teen Girl Squad

Strong Bad is also known for producing a comic series starring four girls, Cheerleader, So-and-so, What’s-her-face and the Ugly One (not kidding, those are their names), in the game, they are a special feature where you make up your own story. The idea is to give each girl a certain command and see what happens, so I can give Perfume to for example So-and-so, and she will cover herself in perfume, you do this until something unfortunate happens to every one of them (this happens all the time BTW).

A good little insight is that in the game itself you may stumble upon small cards that give Strong Bad ideas for the comic, which will add to your inventory when you return to this feature, such as a small card showing a Tar pit you can use to drown What’s-her-face for example.

A nice and hilarious feature, even though I’ve only ever seen this feature in the first two episodes, but the problem is that when the comic is over, Strong Bad gives you a rating, and its unclear as to what commands you should be following, I’ve only “killed off” three of the four girls in each comic and those were by accident. In episode three, they are actually an important item you must show Marzipan, which was the only time they were fun to watch.

It’s a feature only recommended if your bored and like this sort of thing, why this isn’t in the last two episodes I have no idea (maybe I am missing something), but its even more confusing and mind-boggling than the game itself, if I had to rate this feature alone, I’d give it a 2/10

Biggest Weaknesses

Three major weaknesses that bring this game down

Once you have done everything and completed the story, there is little reason to replay the game, it’s the same weakness as the Family Guy game and I feel both games are similar in that they bring our favourite characters to 3D and its funny, but once completed then that’s it. There is no real continuation and the Easter Eggs aren’t worth searching for unless you are determined to complete the game 100%, but often you’ve stumbled upon them by accident anyway.

The other weakness to this game, is that it is only recommended to Homestar Runner fans, playing this game downstairs bored the pants out of my parents because they have no idea who Strong Bad is, it was fun for me because I knew about the world of Homestar Runner enough to get the jokes and references that were put into the game. If you know little about the characters then it’s not worth you playing, this game was not made for n00bs. Saying this, its not really a mainstream game, at least with Brawl you bought it because you knew one or more characters even though there are one or two you don’t recognise (I didn’t know who ROB was when I first saw him).

Lastly, each episode was clearly meant to be played in order, you may play Episode 1 and just leave, but you are not going to be able to play Episode 2 until you have completed episode 1, unless you want to confuse yourself with the many back-references included, it is possible to play these episodes in any order, but for the better effect you must play episodes 1-5 respectively. This is bad when considering how much it costs to buy all five episodes

Overall

Being stuck at home recovering from my serious operation, I can at least say that Strong Bad did well in keeping me company during the past week, as I felt this was a semi-treat. If you’re a Homestar Runner fan and just want something to mellow you out then this is worth looking at, despite the flaws mentioned, this game gets points for keeping the same magic as the cartoons and is just as hilarious.

That being said, here is a short list of pros and cons

Pros
- Homestar Runner in 3D!
- Hilarious and memorable cut-scenes
- True to the original cartoons
- Many hidden references
- Calm game and fun to wonder around
- Decent amount of added features and hidden extras
- Good voice acting

Cons
- Too expensive in terms of cost and drive space
- Not replayable
- May involve clicking to find out what to do next
- Only recommended for Homestar Runner fans
- Teen Girl Squad is stupidly hard
- Treasures, though cool, are not worth finding

Whilst the game is funny and worth looking at, I only recommend it to Homestar Runner fans as I feel they are the only ones who would get a real kick out of it. If you want action and a good storyline that will keep you hooked then this game isn’t for you, if you want to see Strong Bad be Strong Bad then its worth looking into, just have a SD card and a Debit card with a lot of cash ready.

Personally, Monkey Island will always be better, but at least exceeds the old Sam and Max games, I haven’t played the Wii games for Sam and Max but playing this has taught me to stay away.

I am giving the game a low 4/10