Penny Arcade Adventures Episode 1

Once Upon a Time…

While there are a lot of battles, the real draw of the game for most people is going to be the story. In fact, we think it's best to characterize the game as something of an interactive Penny Arcade strip… only a lot longer and with a (mostly) coherent theme. Gabe and Tycho work as paranormal detectives, running their own Startling Developments Detective Agency. Gabe tends to be the brawn of the operation while Tycho provides the brains. Your character just comes along for the ride.

If you read the blog entries that go along with the Penny Arcade comic strips, you'll know that Tycho frequently writes long diatribes about random subjects, as well as providing a bit of background for the individual strips. He also laments any form of continuity between strips, and they "try" to avoid such things. One can only wonder at his horror when he began to put pen to paper and create a story that lasts several hours.

The story portions of the game are certainly not revolutionary, but they're the real meat of the game for fans of Penny Arcade. You get to experience the Gabe-Tycho-Other dynamic that shows up in the webcomic, and some of the comments are sure to induce real laughter - unless of course you hate the comic and all things gaming, like Jack Thompson.

Conversations are your typical "multiple-choice" trees, but with few exceptions they are strictly linear. You can ask for further clarification, and sometimes you'll be given several options - i.e. why are you interested in the giant robot, Tycho wants to know, at which point you get to choose an appropriate response - but other than fleshing out the story somewhat there is no consequence to your choices. We were a little disappointed at this, as we expected at least some difference in response to some of the choices.

It's not strictly part of the storytelling, but there's also interaction with your surroundings. In standard adventure game fashion, you can click around on various objects in the environment to get text descriptions. Unlike the conversations, the descriptions generally aren't all that humorous, but there is a mini game of sorts here as you can find hidden artwork and music that you can listen to back at the Startling Developments office. Find them all, and you even unlock a secret Penny Arcade comic.

The simple summary of the story and gameplay is that it's entertaining for roughly the duration of the game. You can play through it again, but it's not as good the second time around… rather like reading and rereading the same comic strip. Once you know the punch line, it's not as funny. I've purchased Penny Arcade books for about the same price as the game, and they provide about the same amount of entertainment. That's coming from a fan of their work, of course, so adjust your expectations as appropriate.