The Glade 4.0

7/14/2010 on XBLA

Charming. Intelligent. Enigmatic. These are just a few words you won’t be using to describe DeathSpank. He doesn’t stab first and ask questions later. He doesn’t realize there are questions. Created by Ron Gilbert, the legendary mind behind Monkey Island, DeathSpank is the rarest of the rare: an honestly funny, fun video game.

Described by top scientists (and most reviewers, some of them scientists) as Monkey Island meets Diablo, DeathSpank is an exciting hack and slash action RPG set on a massive, dangerous, curvy world. In between hacking and slashing, DeathSpank solves puzzles and explores an epic story. DeathSpank will vanquish evil and be a hero to the downtrodden; he will collect loot, level up, collect loot, acquire new abilities and collect loot.

As you probably just guessed, DeathSpank is filled to bursting with hundreds of weapons, armor sets, witty dialog, improbable scenarios, unexpected villains, and challenging bosses. The action is easily accessible for short bursts of unsupervised fun, but the story is revealed over ten to fifteen hours of gameplay. And there’s more! DeathSpank does not fight alone but with the mighty wizard Sparkles, letting your real-life flesh friends play alongside you in two-player local co-op as DeathSpank quests for the mysterious Artifact called…the Artifact! DeathSpank is the high quality, low priced romp for XBLA/PSN your parents hoped you would grow up and marry one day.

Holy Crap! Bullet Points!

Massive seamless world!
Hundreds of pieces of armor!
Hundreds of weapons!
A real story…not a lousy video game story!
Mind numbing -yet completely fair -adventure game puzzles!
A mysterious thing called The Artifact!
A beautifully hand crafted Quest Log that tracks important and unimportant things to do!
Stuff that blows up!
Stuff that doesn’t blow up!
The most interesting and eccentric cast you’ll ever see!

I dunno man, the name just bothers me.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

I actually had a chance to talk to Ron Gilbert last year at PAX when I was way early in the line for the keynote, but I didn't know it was him.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn