PAA: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode 2 [Review]

It’s been six months since I last touched a Penny Arcade downloadable game, the aptly titled (and oddly subtitled) Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rainslick Precipice of Darkness.  Though series creators Gabe and Tycho (Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins in “the rl”) promised this title to consist of four episodic releases, we’re only now seeing the second episode’s release on Xbox Live Arcade and PC/Mac (with a Playstation Network release in the distant future — Ep. One just got there!). Lucky for them, the stretch of time between releases has clearly helped to bolster an already enjoyable experience. Once I picked up the controller and got back into the swing of the series’ simple-yet-complex combat system, hilarious asides and even more hilarious cut scenes, the hooks were very clearly back in place.

Unsurprisingly, you’re once again tooling around New Arcadia, Penny Arcade’s Lovecraftian locale, with Gabe and Tycho of the Startling Developments Detective Agency. This time they’ve totaled your new house while chasing the first episode’s ever-elusive “Giant Fruitfu%#er” and again are requesting your help to defeat the juice-loving menace. It was immediately apparent to me during these first few scenes of the game that developer Hothead Games have added more of what fans loved about the first episode to the series’ second installment. Response options in text trees are significantly more robust and text doesn’t always match what’s been chosen, a la Mass Effect — responses are often more about what you’re trying to convey rather than the option you’ve literally selected.

Immediately we set off towards returning character Anne-Claire’s house and received instructions for the first objective. Unfortunately, this is where I encountered the first of a few major snags in Ep. Two. While I expect convolution in any story coming from the PA folks, I expected a more specific reason to be joining up with Gabe and Tycho than “We destroyed your house… Sorry! Come help!” Where’s my motivation fellas? Come on!

Back to Anne-Claire’s though, I was quickly ushered to the map screen where I found space for six different areas — an immediate and refreshing change. Where Ep. One suffered from too many repeat performances, number two has not just more locations to explore but also larger areas to scour for items. New items (such as powerful Mustard Gas) helped to give me plenty of reasons to explore the new areas thoroughly.

Furthermore, the combat system set up in Ep. One endures beautifully in number two, which helps to make the seemingly endless stream of baddies a blast to fight. The plethora of new and returning items are put to use with increasing frequency as I progressed through the various locations. Around halfway through the game, I found myself happily tackling enemy after enemy, jumping from location to location and recovering this item or that without a moment’s thought for the hours I had already spent progressing through the story — a pretty glaring indicator of this episode’s great pacing. In addition to these features, combat also sees new assist characters as well as significantly stronger attacks from returning friends. Smart and funny mini-boss battles also helped to keep me glued to the couch for far too long.

Unfortunately, during an encounter with Tycho’s sworn enemy “DuBois”, more than halfway through the game, Ep. Two froze my 360 — the second of those aforementioned snags. I reset the console and reloaded my save game. Luckily, this time I encountered no freeze up. Soon afterward, I headed toward the final boss encounter. This time, instead of my system freezing up, the game simply broke. My party froze in place while my foe leered suspiciously over us, seemingly as confused as I must have looked. I jumped back to the game’s pause screen, saved my game and tried loading up the new save. This time the screen became a mix of multi-contextual HUDs, making each unreadable and forcing me to quit out to the 360′s Dashboard. Fortunately when I reloaded it a final time, the game allowed me to complete the battle and finish the game — a rotten cherry on an otherwise delicious hot fudge sundae (of a game, that is).

As for the bonus content promised to those who had purchased the series’ first episode, Ep. Two comes packed with a special assist character in “Div.” However, he’s only for those of you who  found the first half of the now defunct video technology and occasional guest star of the PA comic strip during the series’ premiere episode. Does he make up for the $20 price point of Episode One? I’m not so sure about that, but it helps to know the developers appreciate my expenditure.

My final complaint with Ep. Two is more personal than the two snags I’ve already mentioned. Specifically, the dialogue is woven with so many “f%$cks” I was taken aback. Now I’m no stranger to colorful language and I’m the first one to throw down the expletive gauntlet but the amount of times I read “f%$ck” for no good reason, completely out of context, was too f%$cking much. Mr. Holkins’ writing doesn’t often disappoint so this final snag struck me particularly strong.

You don’t need to be a Penny Arcade fan to enjoy a great game and given that, I suggest this game thoroughly. It offers a nice respite from the season’s more spacious RPG jaunts and brings with it a dose of comedy rarely found in modern games. While it remains debatable whether or not this title can actually be called episodic in terms of consistent release dates, PAA Ep. 2 picks up where the first game left off and adds six hours of tactical RPG combat, level exploration and ridiculous (as well as hilarious) cutscenes to an already robust experience.

Other Stuff You Might Wanna Know:

Developer: Hothead Games
Publisher: Hothead Games
Release Date: 10/29/08 (XBLA)
Available for: Xbox 360/PC/OSX
Price: 1200 Spacebucks ($15), $15
Rating: (Buy It, Don’t Buy It, **Demo It): *Buy It

**”Demo It” used in place of “Rent It” for Downloadable Titles