DeathSpank: The Baconing Reviews

We have our first two reviews for Electronic Arts and Hothead Games’ humorous hack’n’slash DeathSpank: The Baconing, coming with two radically different verdicts for the title.

RipTen calls it “easily the most fun and best crafted Deathspank title” but criticizes the “more of the same” feeling and the lack of online co-op, 8/10.

It’s been nearly a year since we’ve seen the likes of Deathspank, where the previous games were released within a short few months of each other. In a year’s time, I expected more from this game. You do a bunch of quests, eventually make it to a ship where you sail around for a while doing more quests, then end up at the last boss. The most disappointing aspect of The Baconing is that the game still doesn’t offer online co-op.

That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy my time with The Baconing. I still think it’s the best Deathspank title to date, and fans of the series will fall in love all over again, but I just expected a little more from HotHead Games. Given not much has physically changed from the core game, you would think online co-op would be a must. Local co-op is appreciated, but we’re not in the PS2 days anymore. Gamers are lazy. We don’t want to go to a friend’s house anymore; we want to sit in our nice comfortable chairs and couches and play online without having to get off our ass. But I digress.

In the end, The Baconing is still a fantastic title. Deathspank Fans will be pleased and newcomers will love it. My adventure only took me around 6 hours to complete, but it was a damn fun one, and I’ll probably end up playing through it again. Even though the game is more of the same, it’s still a worthy purchase and will provide a great experience for RPG and Deathspank fans alike.

If you have $15 laying around and are looking for a beautiful, humorous hack-and-slash RPG, you can’t go wrong with The Baconing. My only hope is that we don’t see another title in a few months from now unless there’s online co-op included.

Joystiq complains about the detrimental shift towards combat and awards it a disappointing 2/5.

The combat mechanics haven’t changed at all from DeathSpank’s first two outings. You’ll still shift back and forth from weapons like the aforementioned Mobile Nuker to your World Smasher hammer, building up your combo meter to release an uber-powerful Justice attack. Fighting has never been the strong suit of the series, but the combat-oriented nature of The Baconing makes its deficiencies far more evident. Melee weapons feel sloppy and inaccurate, often leading to crucial misses in difficult situations. Locking on doesn’t help much, especially when dealing with large numbers of enemies, as the top-down vantage point makes it difficult to target the right foe.

Even the fights that aren’t wars of attrition feel like they’re just padding the game’s length. Many of the boss fights are particularly guilty of this: Slugging away for 15 minutes at a conductor of an Orque opera, only to die while he’s got a sliver of life left elicited controller-throwing levels of frustration. Nothing like an overly lengthy, repetitive boss fight to ruin any humor that might be present in a situation. So much for brevity being the soul of wit, right?

It’s unfortunate, because once you get past the various combat frustrations and into dialogue with the many NPCs in the game, the comedy almost redeems all the problems with the fighting. The cast of characters that DeathSpank encounters during his journey are all wonderfully acted, and are backed by an irreverent script mocking everything from the overly masculine video game hero to lengthy quest chains. The big guy’s hatred of the world’s many orphans, a big game hunter that satisfies the desire for a father figure that he didn’t know he wanted, and a quest which has you stuffing ballot boxes with votes for a notoriously corrupt mayor are all fair game.