Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People Review (PC)

By Joe Haygood | August 11, 2008

Telltale Games has been crafting episodic adventure games for a few years now, starting with Bone and perfecting it with Sam and Max.  Now, the team at Telltale has taken on a new franchise to bring to the gaming medium with Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People.  The game looks to be another success for Telltale, with snappy writing; cleaver puzzles and picture perfect art style in comparison to the website.  However, if you are not a fan of the animated web shorts, you might find yourself a little lost and on the outside looking in.

Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People, sets up the tempo for the game the same way the web comics do, by having Strong Bad go to his faithful Lappy to read his emails.  When prompted with the question of why he has never “pounded the snot” out of his rival, Homestar Runner, Strong Bad sets out on an adventure to make this email question come true.   Along the way, Strong Bad becomes intrigued with “The Race to the End of the Race” contest, which he needs to find a way to win to humiliate Homestar Runner.

Adventure games are always judged by the strength of their puzzles, and Strong Bad delivers with puzzles that never outwit the character, but still put you through your paces in thinking.  At no time do you ever come up stumped by a puzzle, although there is one towards the end that really had me scratching my head.  Strong Bad includes a nifty hint system that is now integral to all of Telltale adventure games.  In the options you can select how coy you want the game to be with hints.  You can turn off hints completely, or step it up several notches to be almost blatant with its hints.

Visually, Strong Bad is a stunning replica of the web animated comics.  All the artwork looks like it could have been pulled straight from the series.  All the characters still have the charm and flair that makes them a lot of fun to look at on the screen.  All the set pieces that you see in the comics are here as well, even down to the area of Strong Badia, Population: Tire.  Backdrops are a rather bland, but again, the comics never show much in the way of a jazzed up horizon, just bushes and blue sky.

The interface is a lot different than anything that Telltale has worked on in the past.  Strong Bad uses an iconic dialogue system that has been brought in to make the game easier to play on the Wii.  It also helps with giving the player a visual queue as to what questions can be asked.  It does make the game a little simpler, and takes away from some of the charm from the written dialogue responses that have been in previous Telltale Games.  However, it does streamline the interface, giving the game a rather sleek style that will entice more players that might be intimidated by dialogue selection trees.

Matt Chapman has provided all the voice work for Strong Bad, reprising the roles that he has performed on the website for several years now.  Missy Palmer does provide the one lone female voice in the game, as Marzipan.  These two talents put everything into the roles, sounding better than they do on the web shows.  There are no half assed performances here, and everything is as over the top as it should be.  The background music in the game can be a bit repetitive and sometimes drags on the ears, but luckily there is enough dialogue in the game to get past the ambient noise shortfall.

While playing through the main adventure of Strong Bad, there are tons of little mini games and other item hunts that will reward you with trophies (not the PS3 kind), and other bits of notoriety.  Some of the challenges include finding new outfits, pages to the Snake Fighter manual, and even hunting down untrimmed bushes to carve into bush statues of characters in the game.  One item that made it into Strong Bad that had me laughing non-stop was the Teen Girl Squad, which is a comic that you have to create with the help of Strong Bad.  The payoff of this cartoon was very funny and highly entertaining.  Little items like this reward the dedicated player with a lot more bang for his buck.

Unfortunately, bang for the buck could be a problem with Strong Bad.  While Strong Bad is a lot of fun and will make you laugh, only big fans of the website will really get the meaning behind a lot of the jokes and mini-games, which means that a lot of people might miss out on some of the more creative moments in Strong Bad.  Also, while the Strong Bad is supposed to cater to an easier audience, it does hurt the puzzles quite a bit, making most of the too easy.  Graphical and game glitches came up a few times, although none crashed the game.  Final code may fix these, but they have to be considered in a review as of now.  None of these are a huge detriment to someone’s enjoyment of Strong Bad, but as you put them together, they mar a rather funny and enjoyable gaming experience.

For $8.95, Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People will give players a lot of fun for their money.  They will get a solid adventure game with some add in replay value with all the mini-games.  Art direction and sound just continue the great production values that are viewed on the Homestar Runner site.  You might get lost if you do not follow the site, and technical glitches might cloud your enjoyment, but overall, Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People is a blast to play.  Aeropause gives Strong Bad’s Cool game for Attractive people 4 out of 5 Aeropausonauts.