Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People: Strong Badia the Free



I enjoyed this episode more than the first, because like the still-superior fourth, it has a strong theme that ties the design in with the story. It's not that the first didn't work, but having an idea like each character declaring themselves ruler of their own little nation and making a world-conquering game out of it was enjoyable, and grabbed me more than my merely casual appreciation for the characters. I again ran into a problem where I was supposed to check something more than once to advance the game without any indication of it, but besides that the puzzles were a good combination of being solvable without getting too obvious. The climax takes place in a minigame outside the normal gameplay, but it was a fun departure from the normal experience rather than annoying. I also like how the earlier episodes tease features and new areas that will appear later, it's a cool way to keep people interested instead of just showing a trailer after the credits. I don't like Strong Bad as much as Sam and Max, but I appreciate the games.

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