It hasn’t been long since we’ve seen DeathSpank. After all, the action RPG from Hothead games and Ron Gilbert was just shown at E3, and it’s coming out soon. With a July 13 release date for PSN and July 14 for XBLA, EA has a short amount of time to bring DeathSpank into the hearts and minds of gamers
One of the new features not well known is the co-op for the game. Players have the option for some offline couchside action as they lead their burly, if clueless hero across the land. It’s a cool feature that should please many a gamer, and a solid hour with this mode show that there is something positive about this addition. Sure, it doesn’t look like it’ll detract from the main game, but players with a special friend to join in the fight should enjoy the experience. Follow the jump for more.
DeathSpank (XBLA, PSN)
Developer: Hothead Games
Publisher: EA
To be released: July 13, 2010 (PSN); July 14, 2010 (XBLA)
Reiterating Dale’s hands-on from E3, DeathSpank is an action RPG set in a quirky world in which the surreal happens quite frequently. Dale mentioned DeathSpank’s interaction with taco stands, and between that, upscale gentrified housing, orphan collecting, and a purposefully ambiguous story about our hero DeathSpank being told he is the world’s savior in search of “The Artifact”, a device that no one knows exactly what it is. This is all presented in a silly and goofy manner, with over-the-top buffoons, bizarre quests and childish double entendres. For example, there is a Felt Vendor who sells the fabric of felt, and you leave by declaring that you’ve “been all felt up today”. Enemies, too, are surreal and insane. Unicorns, for example, are the most deadly of foes, and you’ll have to collect their rainbow poop for one mission. It’s like Monkey Island and Diablo had a weird union, all wrapped up in crazy loot collecting and a level 20 level-cap.
Couple all of these silly and non sequitur elements with the graphics, a contrast between 2D pop-up book flat images against a 3D world that bends away as DeathSpank walks across the map, much like Animal Crossing: Wild World. It’s a simple effect, but it’s cool nonetheless. Hothead promises 10-15 hours for the campaign, and they are aiming to make this a title that offers more polish and better design than many other $15 titles. So far, it looks like they’ve done a pretty good job of completing them.
And that’s really the basics. It’s a standard loot collecting game, and it is clearly a polished product with a lot of thought put into it. However, prior to now, not much has previously been known about the co-op mode in the game. Completely offline, if DeathSpank wants to defeat evil with a friend, players can just turn on a second controller. Thus is introduced Sparkles the Wizard, a wide-eyed, purple spangled robe-wearing wizard emboldened with his own set of moves, such as a fire blast, a generic projectile or a healing spell. He’s purposefully generic, and while he offers nothing to the plot, he fits the aesthetic of the game perfectly. He’s random for the sake of being random, and for a game like DeathSpank, it works.
Since the two characters share the same health bar, Sparkles tends to take on much more of a support role, healing DeathSpank when needed, sending out projectiles, making clones of himself to explode amongst enemies, and more. Considering DeathSpank is much more of the tank figure between the two, a duo of capable players should have a good time working through the levels together. Sure, DeathSpank himself has all the extra additions of weapons and armor, as well as variations of weapon attacks and healing food consumption, Sparkles is locked into certain abilities and roles, so he’s a bit easier to work with. Really though, it’s a bummer that he cannot be modified or changed, or that players cannot bring over their version of DeathSpank for a co-op game.
Unfortunately, without online multiplayer, and because Sparkles is limited to his specific moveset that cannot be changed, this co-op mode looks like a fun afterthought that should be great for people who are already inclined to play games together on a couch. Everyone else may just find the option to be superlative for what looks like a pretty enjoyable game. Again, it’s a drag that the game couldn’t use some scaling options to let there be online play, but that’s the way things EA and Hothead have determined things to be. At least it’s a fairly solid option for those looking to get a little extra play out of the game.
