The International House of Mojo

Strongbad's Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 4: Dangeresque 3 (or SCG4AP4D3 for short) is not a bad game. It's not a great game, either: it's somewhere in the middle. If you love Strongbad then there's nothing in here to disappoint you; it's full of references and jokes and lots of characters and sweets and hijinx. As a game, however, it has some noticeable flaws.

The set-up is that you're watching a video of a film Strongbad has made. All the puzzles and storyline are part of this film. This involves many exciting touches, like wobbling cameras, characters not wanting to say lines, and even fast-forwarded scenes.

At the same time, this set-up does not really lend itself to a game: it's hard to believe that we're watching a film when I am driving Strongbad from scene to scene using random objects in my inventory with random parts of the environment. The frame works better when it's verbal; like the majority of Monkey Island 2 being a story told by Guybrush to Elaine. I can believe that the excessive amount of faffing I do when I work out the puzzles is not all recounted in the paratext of Guybrush's storytelling. When the game is actually a film that we are physically watching, though, the frame cannot so easily be forgotten, and the story is lost. I often sympathised with the people watching the film, as I bumbled around working out the puzzles. I felt I was watching myself play the game. It was not an exciting experience.

Matters are not helped by some overly tedious sections. Towards the end of the game you are required to visit half a dozen countries (in reality the same location with different props) in order to chase some character in the film. Each time you arrive you are told that she has just left. The plot staggers on in a drunken manner, not sure of where it is going or what it is trying to do. Of course, this is accurate for what is supposed to be an amateur video; but my point is that it does not work when it is the only plot in the entire game. I didn't care about the characters either, since they were themselves playing other characters. I like Homestar, for instance, and I'm interested in what he does... but when he's playing "Dangeresque Too" I'm not so transfixed. Who is he? What is his significance?

It might have been better if the paratext had been abandoned, and the game had followed the way taken by Videlectrix; that is, making a game set in the fictional world of Dangeresque rather than a game based on a separate interpretation of that world. Then again, I may just be talking bollocks.

The bottom line: this is a very polished and entertaining adventure game. It's not great, and I wouldn't overly recommend it, but at least it achieves what it sets out to do. It will be frustratingly tedious for anyone who does not love Strongbad, but fans of the series will enjoy it well enough. But then you already knew that: so why did you read this review?

Gabez
10th March, 2009