Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode 1 Review

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Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode 1

Review by SteerpikeJune 2008

Offended by Vulgarity? Stop Now

I know it’s in vogue to dislike Penny Arcade these days, but I just can’t toe that particular line. Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins—better known as their comic alter-egos Gabe and Tycho—have managed to coax plenty of laughs from me over the years. Penny Arcade is, to me, something that this industry needs: something as seriously important as it is absurdly amusing; video gaming’s satirical conscience. It is to games what Doonesbury is to politics. It proves something about games as a whole. Having a figurehead industry comic makes the medium more …  real, somehow. More focal, more imperative and undismissable.

And though it began as a humble webcomic, Penny Arcade has grown into a media empire. In 2007 alone, its Child’s Play charity drive raised over a million dollars in money and toys donated to children’s hospitals around the world, making those dreary places a little brighter, a little more hopeful. The annual Penny Arcade Expo—PAX to the cool kids—rivals the mighty E3 in attendance. And through it all, through all of the charity and event management, despite their many hundreds of thousands of dollars in branded marketing, contract work, and guest appearances, Holkins and Krahulik have churned out a new full color strip, like clockwork, every other weekday.

And every other weekday, the world of gaming includes that strip in its morning routine, alongside coffee and toothbrushing. People in the business listen to what Penny Arcade says. The comic’s legendary ability to ridicule has made it famous and, at times, feared. If there were Commandments in this industry, one of them would surely be Thou Shalt Not Get on Penny Arcade’s Bad Side, for Lo, They Shall Destroy Thee. Penny Arcade wields true power in the industry, though I’ve never gotten the sense that the company’s employees are drunk upon it. They’re still just shlubs who love games, who know the secret hearts of gamers, and who happen to be able to make a living telling jokes about them.

And they typically use their power for good. These guys know the games industry; heck, they influence it. Decisions and reversals alike have occurred due to Penny Arcade’s mockery. Still, when the company announced its intention to get into the game development business itself, there were some eyebrows raised. Not only was it a risky endeavor for a duo who’ve made their share of enemies amongst the enthusiast press, but for two guys who love playing games so much, suddenly making them seemed almost like changing sides.

But make one they have; On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness is a planned four-episode series developed by Hothead Games, with original art from Krahulik and a script penned by Holkins. It is a straight-up turn-based adventure, not too dissimilar from an action-oriented JRPG, but with a distinct style and voice, plus a couple of very clever original ideas, all its own.

Still, both sides of the quality coin show their face here. Precipice is fun but also painfully linear, far too short, and lacking in any replay value. The real selling point is that it’s a Penny Arcade cartoon made interactive, from the trademark artistic style and four-letter humor straight through to the inside jokes. If you’re a fan, you’ll like Precipice for the same reason you like the comic. If you’re not a fan, steer clear; because only fans can overlook the game’s single, suffocating issue: it’s fun, but it ain’t $20 of fun. It’s about $13 of fun. For $12.95, this game would be a Gold Star, because at that price you overlook or forgive much that you wouldn’t in a premium-priced title. At twenty clams, the Get out of Jail Free card isn’t quite as potent.

Steerpike Uses the F Word

The year is 1922, and the pattering of raindrops from a late-autumn storm are the harbingers of doom in the burg of New Arcadia, a scum-rotten dive of a city infested with all manner of evil. Yeah, it’s the kind of place even the hooligans avoid, where the air is black with the fetid breath of forgotten gods and every doorway cries of despair. New Arcadia ain’t for the timid, that’s for sure—and powers are stirring that have long slumbered beneath its foundations. That’s where the Startling Developments Detective Agency earns its bread and butter: founders John Gabriel and Tycho Brahe fight toe-to-toe with evil so wretched it’d curl the devil’s toenails. These are your go-to guys for supernatural investigation and elimination. Gabe’s flying fists of fury can bloody the nose of whatever Lovecraftian dreckbeast your unholy spells can conjure up; Tycho’s as mean with a tommy gun as he is with a textbook.

And they’re gonna need everything in the arsenal, because today something big—something really big, we’re talking something that makes the Stay Puft Marshmallow man feel inferior—has turned its lambent red eyes and stainless steel juicing apparatus toward the huddling city. Penny Arcade fans know the vicious machine monster to which I refer. Everyone else: I refer to … ah … ahem.  Oh, screw it: I speak of the Fruit Fucker™ Brand Home Juicing System, a minor if recurring character in the comic, and one of the key villains in Precipice.

Actually, one of the greatest things about this game is the fact that it allows Penny Arcade fans to place themselves inside the duo’s big adventure, with all of the little secondary characters and fan-service asides.  Those who read the comic know its little world very well: Gabe and Tycho’s apartment is full of home appliances with consciousness and personality; and their neighbors, relations, and enemies play no small role in this game. It’s fun to go through the character creation system, which (despite sharply limited options, especially for female characters) allows you to create a reasonable facsimile of yourself in Krahulik-ified cartoon form. You’re an average sort, living an average life, out peacefully raking leaves one average afternoon … when your house gets crushed under the galvanized metal foot of Fruit Fucker Prime, the Juicer to Rule Them All, as it strolls through New Arcadia, carving a swath of destruction—and leaving behind hundreds of tiny, deadly juicing minions—in its wake.

Tycho and Gabe are already hot on the beast’s stainless heels, and thus is your lot thrown in with theirs. All of this happens within the first ten minutes of play, which serve also as a convenient tutorial. But chthonic juicing mechanisms are just the beginning—evil mimes, the homeless, and Tycho’s niece also figure prominently. So does urine.

Interestingly, little actual plot is revealed in this, the first of Precipice’s four episodes. Basically, the mimes are trying to resurrect an ancient Mime God, as mimes are wont to do; and the juicers are running amok through the city, but beyond that there’s not too much really meaty here, story-wise. It has all of the trademark goofiness and scatological largesse of a Penny Arcade cartoon, and there’s just something about finding yourself living one that makes it really delightful.

Yardwork Leads to Mayhem Every Time

Adventure fans such as those who compose a large portion of the FFC readership will find themselves right at home in Precipice’s left-mouse-button-and-spacebar world. The game, which is also available over Xbox Live, is pretty simple, focusing largely on exploration, box smashing, and turn-based combat.

That latter is spiced up by the inclusion of some mechanics that add to the depth of strategy in combat, should you choose to take advantage of them. The entire system is basically a rock-paper-scissors stats setup in which your trio’s speed, attack, and defense attributes are compared against those of the various enemies you encounter. When one of your characters is attacked, however, you have a split-second opportunity to mash the spacebar and perform a block, reducing damage or—in some cases—allowing for a devastating counterattack. It’s a very simple mechanism that nonetheless puts you in a position where you have to pay attention throughout every encounter, because the difficulty ratchets up in the middle and stays that way until you max out your characters about an hour before the game wraps up. Indeed, timing is everything in all walks of Precipice’s combat system; not only must you time your blocks, but all actions are managed through an ever-ticking pool of action points allotted to each character. Different actions take different amounts of points, calculated in real time, so there is a good deal of strategy in determining when to hold back from attacking to score special hits, deciding when it’s wise to spend time using items from your inventory, and so forth. The result is a combat system that merges turn-based with real-time in such a way as to keep you heavily engaged without becoming so reflex-intensive that slow or arthritic gamers will be put off.

Hothead was wise to invest so much development effort into the combat, because Precipice has a lot of it. The minigames tied to each of the three protagonists’ special attacks are also well-implemented, neither annoyingly simple nor frustratingly intricate.  Similarly, boss encounters show a marked but not excessive increase in challenge over regular foes and are spaced nicely through the game’s approximately four-hour runtime. All in all, Precipice is a game that uses time well, from the micromanagement of your characters in combat to its overall pacing.

This is, unfortunately, also the only serious flaw. I don’t mind that it’s short; Portal was shorter and is the best game of the past five years. I do mind that it feels short, not only in a chronological sense but in terms of progress and setting. The game feels squashed, constricted, with the general air of having been dehydrated and squeezed into an uncomfortably narrow experience. There are only four major locations—of which only two contain significant play elements; only four or five different types of enemy, only five or six major characters, and very little challenge to your progression. Precipice is very much a Point A to Point B to Point C kind of game, and you’re never going to be unsure where to go or what to do next.

Is this a problem? Not exactly, and certainly not in the sense that bad combat or controls would be. Overall, it feels like Precipice wanted to be a bigger game but just … isn’t. You reach a point when walking the same streets and smashing the same crates for the same powerups used when fighting the same enemies against the same backdrops with the same attacks to achieve the same goals becomes kind of same-y. The interesting thing is that the game ended exactly as that sensation began to grate on me, so, despite the cramped conditions, I never quite got to the point of being irritated by it.

Juicing for Fun and Profit

And that’s why it’s a perfect game for fans of Penny Arcade.  The hilarious animated Flash cutscenes and droll, italic- and big-word-intensive narration show that Krahulik and Holkins, even after all these years together, still don’t miss a trick. If you find the comic funny, you will laugh out loud at Precipice’s dialogue and cutscenes, because despite its faults, there are some things about it that are just so … so perfectly, classically Penny Arcade. And it was with that perspective that its creators approached the development of world and characters.

There is, for example, no voice acting in Precipice, aside from a narrator at the beginning. This was a very conscious and wise decision. Penny Arcade fans have got their own mental voices for Gabe and Tycho, so hiring actors to play them, no matter how good the talent was, would have been simply disorienting. Plus, since the whole point of Precipice is to make you feel like you’re playing a cartoon, the speech bubbles and block narration just fit in.

The world of New Arcadia is similarly well-conceived. This is a silly city, part Dashiell Hammett hard-boiled and part theatrical meloabsurdity. Precipice never deviates from its flight plan of being a shamelessly goofy romp—it never tries to be anything but what it is, and the result is an experience that, despite the brevity, feels extremely well–put together and polished. Krahulik’s art style has in my mind become so irretrievably associated with Penny Arcade that I really have difficulty looking at his work in any other setting. Perhaps sensing that, the developers didn’t try to challenge the boundaries of what we’d likely expect the adventure world to be. Rather than constraining the possible experience, it was the smartest thing they could have done. I expected—wanted—a constrained experience, and I got one.

Hothead Games is a pretty new player on the scene. As far as I can tell, the Vancouver-based company exists astride the fuzzy barrier between casual game developer (PopCap) and episodic game developer (TellTale).  All in all, they’re kind of an interesting choice to develop Precipice, because the company doesn’t have a long list of credits and isn’t really well known. While On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness isn’t going to win any awards, its triumph is really its ability to effectively engage us in the dark silliness of the strange world Krahulik and Holkins have built over the years. For those who delightedly visit that world every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, there are worse ways to spend your money. For those strapped for cash or ambivalent about the comic, though … wait for the inevitable boxed compilation. The End

The Verdict

The Lowdown

Developer: Hothead Games Publisher: Hothead Games Release Date: May 2008

Available for: Windows Xbox Linux Xbox 360

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System Requirements

Windows Windows 2000/XP/Vista Pentium III, AMDAthlon 1.0 GHz 64 MB video memory (shared or dedicated) with OpenGL support 512 MB RAM Keyboard and mouse Sound card 350 MB free hard drive space One-time Internet connection required to activate

Mac Mac OS X 10.4/10.5 with latest updates PowerPC G4, G5, or Intel-based Mac 1.0 GHz 64 MB video memory 512 MB RAM Keyboard and mouse Sound card 350 MB free hard drive space One-time Internet connection required to activate

Linux Linux 32-bit x86 Pentium III, AMDAthlon 1.0 GHz 64 MB video memory (shared or dedicated) with OpenGL support 512 MB RAM Keyboard and mouse Sound card 350 MB free hard drive space One-time Internet connection required to activate

Where to Find It

Links provided for informational purposes only.  FFC makes no warranty with regard to any transaction entered into by any party(ies).

      Copyright © Electric Eye Productions.  All rights reserved.  No reproduction in whole or in part without express written permission.

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14 Responses to Fear Factor

  • Fear Factor | Tap-Repeatedly.com | Reality Topics Blog

    […] nobody@flickr.com (graftedno1) wrote a very interesting post today.   Here’s a quick excerpt:My greatest fear is to be trapped alone in a confined space with a blind human, in total darkness. They have a heightened sense of smell and hearing, and. […]

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    Lewis, you made me think of the scariest moments I’ve experienced in gaming, and we’re very similar people.

    Bioshock had two moments – the dentist and the flooded room filled with mannequins.

    Thief had Return to the Cathedral, which was terrifying to me. Thief 3 had Shalebridge Cradle, which is so scary it ought to be fined.

    System Shock 2 kept me on the edge of my seat, but it was more lonely panic than true fear.

    Korsakovia was so scary that I uninstalled it.

    And STALKER. Oh, god, the haunted labs in STALKER. The latter two games don’t have scares like that. Few games do.

    It’s especially rare for a game to have more than mere “moments” – for a game to be scary from beginning to end, that’s a triumph.

    Wonderful article. As if Gregg’s review wasn’t enough to convince me that Penumbra is not something I have the courage to play!

  • DPenn

    I’m with you Lewis … I’m a bit of a puss. I just have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of dread as entertainment.

    Still, I’m drawn to dark stories when they have something interesting to say, whether it’s a game like Thief or a film like, say, Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible. So I’ll push through, sometimes peering through my fingers.

    The trouble with games, though, is that if you look through your fingers, you’re probably just going to have to play through the scenario again. :~)

  • Mike "Scout" Gust

    I wanted to play this game. I downloaded the demo but the controls were just too wonky for me to get my head around. I liked the atmospheric vibe a lot. I think I’m a bit desensitized from an overdose of horror movies in my youth so I don’t so much get the dread thing from these games as a nice creepy vibration. If only the controls were better…

  • Lewis B

    @ Mike, what’s wrong with the controls bud? As someone who despises poor control schemes, Penumbra’s is just like any other FPS, except to examine things you right click on them.  To use things you left click.  I’m not sure that can be considered difficult 🙂

  • Gregg B

    @Steerpike: Yeah my greatest shit-scared moments were with those games too. A few spoilers below people, so beware.

    Bioshock – Haha, I remember the dentist. I didn’t really find the game that scary overall but the bit where you go into the wine cellar and notice a mannequin facing the wall and after upgrading your weapon it’s stood directly behind you motionless and quiet just for a moment before attacking you. I shat a brick. I also missed that bit originally until Lew told me about it.

    System Shock 2 – same as you really, more unremitting tension all the way through rather than specific terrifying moments. Oh actually, theres a bit where you call a lift and it breaks then you realise a service droid is coming to fix it… I do remember having sleep issues after my first encounter with the cyborg ninjas though.

    Thief: The Dark Project – The Sword and Return to the Cathedral and Down in the Bonehoard and well, loads of them. The Sword made me break out into goosebumps though because there was a bit where you could hear this creepy giggling which seemed like it was following me about then it suddenly changed to this horrible throaty noise. What made matters worse was that the EAX (bless you Creative) made my foot steps sound like somebody else was there with me. That level was incredible, a bit too incredible as it seems I missed great chunks of it because I was so eager to leave.

    Thief II: The Metal Age – Trail of Blood where you end up in that opening with those damn tree beasts. God the first time I saw one of those hurtling towards me I actually died shortly afterward. Do you remember that Mechanist child walking around on one of the levels? That was a little creepy.

    Then there’s Penumbra: Overture – quite a few bits but I’m not mentioning them here.

    Oh and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. – The brain scorcher lab just because it was so damn quiet. My imagination seriously got the better of me there. Those stuffed animals and heads I’d seen in various buildings led me to believe that those creatures were lurking somewhere in the Zone, specifically that lab.

    @Mike: My control setup was perfect after some tweaking (as well as the simple weapon swing fix). If you ever fancy giving it another go, give me a shout and I’ll let you know my setup.

  • Lewis B

    I’m not sure why guys, but one of my starting paragraphs had gone missing, even though I copied it straight from the original source, and It was fine earlier. 

    Incase you missed it due to some technical issue you might want to re-read just after “Well no she wouldn’t in truth, but in Penumbra: Overture you don’t want to move anyway.” at the very start for those who’ve already read the article. Apologies 🙂

  • Mike "Scout" Gust

    Lewis, it was the weapon swing. It had this terrible, unresponsive feel to it, like trying to hit through molasses. I couldn’t stand using it. I tried the .ini fix as mentioned in the review but it didn’t seem to help. Of course this was the demo…but that shouldn’t have made any difference. I might try the second game instead as I guess they did away with the weapons thing.

    I’m see your first paragraph just fine. It’s the dialogue, right?

  • jdeuel

    I like the argument that weapons can remove fear, but even loaded to the teeth with ammo in AVP’99 the Marine missions were frightful because the enemy was anywhere at any time.

    As for Penumbra Overture, if the controls are anything like the original Penumbra they need to hack in some Wii-Remote 3d controls. I did not like using my mouse for 3d movements.

  • Gregg B

    @Mike: I’ve read that many people avoided conflict altogether in Overture which incidentally is something forced upon you in Black Plague. As somebody who has been renovating a house over the last 6 months with no DIY experience I can safely say that swinging a hammer is significantly easier in real life than it is in Overture without the fix. The fix balanced that for me.

    I’d highly recommend completing the first Penumbra because it’s one big build up to Black Plague which spoils the ending to Overture in the intro. And it’s a great ending too. Just so you know!

  • Lewis B

    @ Steerpike, those moments you mention are all my worst too!!  Do you remember the Robot labs in SS2? Absolutely terrifying, waiting for robots to burst out on you! 🙁 oh and have you ever player Condemned?

    @ Mike, The use of weapons in Penumbra is different to say HL2, where the player is physically holding the weapon, as in Penumbra it floats slightly infront of you.  However, if you change the control method to normal weapon swing, it’s no different!  Speak to Greggi and he’ll tell you what to do 🙂

    @ jdeuel, AVP the original and its sequal were scary however what type of fear do you think it is? I don’t think it’s anything more than sheer tension.  Having a Smart Gun makes you feel incredibly powerful.  I can honestly say in Penumbra the fear is sheer unrivalled terror, where you actually have to force yourself to play on.  It genuinly is that scary! 🙂

  • Jason Dobry

    It’s so true, an arsenal of weapons and ammo rapidly deflates any sense of horror or uneasiness in any game for reasons you already mentioned. Sakey, I thought Bioshock was more “lonely panic,” while I was pretty much always terrified in System Shock 2. I really, really, REALLY did not want to enter The Many’s nursery, and my weapons were so unreliable and ammo so scarce that I never felt safe.

    Silent Hill was terrifying for the same reasons. Ammo was rare and I frequently had to rely on my pipe for self-defense.  Even when I had ammo, the game mechanics prevented my character from being anything other than marginal with any firearm.

    Fear had one moment for me: I was climbing up a ladder, and as I reached the upper platform, my guy briefly looked down as he climbed off. As my perspective looked up again, that Ring-esque little girl was RIGHT THERE, reaching for me. I screamed and she was gone.

    What else…the original Aliens vs. Predator sent me into a locker room and I could only hear the facehuggers scurrying about somewhere within. I had to go in there. I advanced about three steps before the damn thing screamed and filled up my screen with its repulsive underside as it implanted me with its spawn. My roommate made fun of me for weeks for screaming like a girl child.

    Korsakovia–meh.  I was too annoyed and frustrated by the box rearrangement/jumping puzzles to be scared. I uninstalled it after an hour of play, I think. Maybe the scary parts were later, but I doubt it.

    As for Penumbra, I did play through about half of it before other games distracted me. I remember unease and creepiness, but no sweaty fear. I think I’m to blame here, or, more precisely, my daughter, who was still an infant at the time and generally allowed me only to play during the day for 45 minutes at a time. I was denied total immersion and the fear effect suffered. Maybe I should give it another go after I finish Call of Pripyat since she sleeps through the night now. With any luck, Penumbra will keep me from doing the same.

  • Gregg B

    I played the demo of F.E.A.R. but that ladder scare is the only bit I remember. Christ, that made me jump. I’m not too good with cat scares.

    Also I felt exactly the same about Korsakovia. It was creepy at first but then it began to irritate me far too much and it just soured the experience. I stopped playing as a result. Not to mention, when I realised I could bash those smoke-things with my crowbar they didn’t bother me nearly as much.

  • Online Up

    Great article. I look forward to reading more in the future.

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