DeathSpank, oh wise cow

It is time for a post! Although my last post had a picture of Foxy, I will not be writing a Five Nights at Freddie's article until October since that is when the last installment of the series is going to be released. I really love Foxy is all, such a weird animatronic. So...that means it's time for DeathSpank, hero to the downtrodden, defender of justice, and eater of bacon.

A question on your mind audience might be who, or what, is DeathSpank? Well DS is the main character and hero of the game series DeathSpank. I will only be covering the first of the series in this post since the second game (I have not yet played the third) requires its own posting glory. I have a few bullets that sum both him and the game up rather nicely.

• DeathSpank is a downloadable game from the Playstation Network as well as Steam for PC; honestly use a controller for whichever you choose.
• You will face great terrors such as unicorns, greems, and undead chickens
• Finding all the lost orphans is a wondrous and long quest
• Sandy is a turd
• Money is never an issue
• The enchanted forest is beyond trippy without the use of narcotics
• DeathSpank talks, his voice is magical and hilarious
• The game is about ten hours long, for completion
• Crossbows seem useless at first, but are very VERY necessary
• Spin attacking enemies is probably the best Justice weapon
• Justice meter, awesome
• Customize-able controls, seriously you choose what button does what
• Food!
• "Get in the bag future criminal"

Alrighty, that was a very informative bullet list. Let's skip the formalities from now on and dive into the meaty bits of the game. First off as often, characters. Starting character, the man of the hour, DeathSpank.

The hero to the downtrodden and vanquisher of evil

As you start the game you, the player, are introduced to an epic opening of DS lore. His mission is to find an important artifact, known only as The Artifact, in order to become the hero he was destined to be. 

Of course, since this is an RPG, finding The Artifact is not DeathSpank's only mission; you have many a quest to do audience. Honestly though, most tedious quests can be skipped. I never skip anything if I can help it, I like complete files, but the Greem mating stones and the Thongoliths are not necessary to beat the game so to speak.

Right, back to DS. DeathSpank is a fantastic character solely on his personality. He is a heroic hero who speaks heroically at all times no matter the situation of heroics. He is fashionable in his purple vest, thong, and mask, and is never hesitant to layer on extra armor of awesomeness. He shoots before he thinks; in fact he does a lot before thinking. Thoughts weigh a hero down with guilt, reasoning, and questions. Why bother with any of those. After all he is DeathSpank!

Quick Tip: This game has the option to be played with two players. The second player is a wizard friend of Deathspank's, Sparkles. He looks like Tom Kenny in a pointy hat and starry robe. Sparkles is a great addition for first timers since he can heal DeathSpank as well as send out various elemental spells.

There are several other characters in the game besides DS, the NPCs, but I don't want to reveal too much about them. The claustrophobic spelunker with a million other phobias is my favorite NPC, just wait until you meet him dear audience.  Encountering and interacting with the various NPCs really adds to the game audience, therefore I don't want to reveal anything that might ruin that experience. Normally I mention more but again, with this game character interaction is a good chunk of the fun. Dialogue.

I will talk about Sandy once more though; she is a serious turd.

The turd

Sandy is the logical NPC who is not about fun and games. No, she takes hero-ing waaaaay too seriously. She tends to point out the obvious in the game which is odd because the player can do so on their own. Is rescuing orphans a good thing? Yes. Is shoving them in a sack a good thing? Probably not. Sandy points out details and scolds DeathSpank on his silliness. There was no need for her to be in the game at all. That would be my only complaint, shitty character Sandy.

Moving on then, so beyond the NPCs and DeathSpank, the characters of the game are the enemies. Do you love silly enemies audience? Great! So do I! DS is full of wacky enemies that make you laugh while you slaughter them. The Greems are gremlin-like creatures that you will find all over the map of the DS world. They are those run-of-the-mill everywhere enemies that are stronger in more difficult areas. Vicious chickens are your first enemies. Killing them is not only hilarious because they are chickens, come on Cucco haters you know you want to, but they drop food. Well, the vicious ones drop lips and the Stoopid ones drop food. Chickens have lips audience, how else could they whistle? Anyways, certain enemies drop food which replenishes your health over time.

Warning: So long as you are not hit during the duration of healing, the food will heal you. One hit and the process stops. For full quick healing try potions.

Chickens, the Stoopid ones, drop chicken legs otherwise known as the first food item that you will encounter. The more levels you climb and the more areas you explore the more food options you will have. More, more, more! Other creatures, well they drop things like french fries, corn dogs, and milkshakes for no apparent reason other than that junk food is delicious.

My favorite enemy, really enemies, well it's a tie between the Giant Turtles and the Gingerbread Warriors. The Giant Turtles are at Turtle Lake and you must collect their gonads for a certain quest. Honestly I really love turtles so this should not be a surprise. The Gingerbread Warriors are annoying little fuckers that are pleasure to slaughter. They giggle and ambush you in the Enchanted Forest all the time. They are one of the only creatures that will constantly respawn in an area that you are in and have recently cleared. Just die little gingerbread men; don't think I'm fast enough? Run, run as fast as you can, oh wait! You died at the hands of my crossbow.

Ah, the mention of the crossbow makes a great transition into the weapons topic. Being an RPG, there is a huge amount of weapon selection in DS. You have your regular weapons, Justice weapons, spells, and summons. The spells are cool because they rain elemental powers down upon the earth which can smite a large cluster of enemies when you are in a pinch. However, they are not to be relied upon because some enemies, undead ones, do not take damage to anything except certain weapons. Undead weapons kill undead enemies, for example. Poison hurts the living, fire hurts poison, ice hurts fire, etc.

Justice in Action

DeathSpank can have four weapons equipped at a time giving a decent amount of choice on how you want to play the game. Spells can have a maximum of five uses before they disappear; the same for summons. The summons bring forth groups of enemies that will fight for you for a certain amount of time. The weapons, both regular and Justice do not disappear unless you sell them. By the way, no need to find a shop keeper to sell your items; DS has a recycling machine on hand at all times that enables him to "recycle" any weapons or items that he picks up in exchange for gold. This is why money is never an issue.

Quick Tip: It is smart to have regular and Justice weapons in your arsenal as well as a variety of elements in order to take on the wide diversity of enemies. Having range, crossbows, as well as close combat gives DeathSpank the best advantage. Think carefully about which weapons you throw away.

The difference between regular and Justice weapons is simple; regular weapons have a set damage that they give while Justice weapons do a lot of damage once the Justice bar is filled and used but don't do much after Justice is spent. The way you build up Justice is by using Justice weapons back to back. Also, crossbows tend to be very weak in this game, even with elemental bolts, and seem useless. However, they are useful when you need to do distance attacks. Have one on hand during the Haunted Forest area; there are skeleton enemies that will suicide bomb you if you don't shoot their red glowing graves first. My weapon setup is often two Justice weapons equipped along with two regular weapons. That way when I need some Justice, usually when a large swarm of enemies attacks, I can quickly power up the Justice bar by alternatively using my two Justice weapons which causes the Justice count to multiple making the process faster. Then, once the bar is empty, I still have strong weapons with my regular weapons since their damage count stays at a constant. If I need a crossbow, I can just hop into my items menu and equip it, easy peasy. Basically do what you want and have fun with it.

Warning: The Justice bar will stop filling up and the Justice count will stop multiplying if you use any weapon other than a Justice Weapon. That being said, if the bar is full, the next Justice weapon you use will activate and therefore empty it. There is some strategy to this game.

Besides weapons, there are cool areas to explore and armor sets to collect. I'm not going to talk in too much detail about either because experiencing them without any major clues or ideas helps to make this game. The art style and creative take on a fictional magical place makes the game that much more interesting and ridiculous. I will say this, Enchanted Forest is super trippy (again) and the Monastery is a place of evil. Also armor sets are so much fun to complete! Armor and weapons are often rewards for quests, namely sidequests, which gives extra incentive to finish the game completely. Otherwise, you'd have to buy all of the missing pieces. Lame!

Oh. I almost forgot to mention something super important, death. Well lives, in video game terms.

So DeathSpank does not have any lives, so to speak. He instead has outhouses. When you die in DS you are teleported to the last outhouse that you activated. You also drop some gold which can be reclaimed if you are quick enough, just run over there you'll make it; none of the bullshit of Sonic and his rings. The outhouses are more than respawn points however; they act as fast travels as well. The more outhouses you find, the faster you can move around the map. Just bring up your map menu and click on the outhouse you want in order to teleport to that area. That will then be your last activated outhouse unless you pass another in the area. The "out of order" outhouses are the only ones that won't let you fast travel, they are only respawn points.

That is DeathSpank in a nutshell. Most enemies can be slaughtered with button mashing, but some require long range, elements, or hit then run away. It is a game that is fun to explore and complete all with fantastic dialogue to boot. I hope you enjoyed this post audience but I hope that you will play and enjoy the game far more. Oh music, yeah it's pretty good. The main theme is best though. Till we meet again in cyberspace!