Welcome to the reboot of Trials and Demolitions, our column on playing the limited trials or demonstrations of full games that companies drop from time to time. I Know not all of us has the money or the time to play every game, so playing a trial or a demo is a good way to spend some quality time gaming while not paying a single red cent.
I can’t say that I’ve only recently heard of Deathspank, but it has only been in the last week that I’ve given the game much thought. To me it looked like another try at a humorous game, a try that seemed destined to fail. The art style didn’t really appeal to me and I’ve played a ton of Diabloesque action role-playing games in the last year.
Then the name Ron Gilbert grabbed my attention. After that I knew I had to play the game.
The demo is quite large, for a demo. It is more of a Trial then a demo, coming in at a little over a gig of data. It dropped on the Xbox Live Arcade, so there is an option to unlock the game at any time. It took me a bit to download, but when it did I was ready to play.
Let’s get this out of the way: The game is a Diablo like action RPG clone. You kill lots of things and get lots of loot. You have four slots for weapons, which range from beat ‘em up sticks to ranged. You can block. You can perform feats of Justice that do different things, like stun all surrounding enemies. You collect cards when you level up that effect your stats and help you. It feels like your typical Action RPG, if you only look at it from a pure gameplay perspective.
But the humor! Oh the humor takes me back. Listening and reading the dialogue starts sinking me in to the ocean of time… I’m a teen again, playing The Secret of Monkey Island, Space Quest, and so many other Lucasarts and Sierra point and click adventures. Though the game-play is different, I am killing hordes of ducks, dragons, daemons, and what not, the humor and the spirit of these games is wrapped up in this gig of downloadable content.
Then it hits me: 30 minutes. That seems to be the defacto time limite for these trials at the moment. I’ve seen it on a few other demos on Xbox live recently. There are other ways the demo locks you out: High quality weapons can’t be equipped and certain quests can’t be triggered.
But the demo has done it’s job. I want this game. I want it as soon as possible. Although ti really seems like a game that would be more at home on a PC then on a console. It has the old spirit of gaming packed in it, a spirit I am glad to see still alive and well.
Download the demo and judge for yourself. Check out the official website by clicking here.
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