Reviewed: September 19, 2011
Reviewed by: Oscar Perez

Publisher
Hothead Games

Developer
Hothead Games

Released: August 30, 2011
Genre: Action-RPG
Players: 1-2

9
8
8
8
8.5

Supported Features:

  • 2 GB Hard Drive Space
  • DualShock 3
  • HDTV 480p/720p
  • Dolby Digital
  • Local Co-op (2)

    		•  Behold the great Deathspank, wearer of the six thongs of justice, defender of spanktopia and the lord of bacon! Now that, my friends, is a title of kings. If you were to judge this game only from the title, The Baconing what would you expect? Perhaps a weird and wacky adventure that had to do with throwing six thongs into the eternal bacon fires lest evil roam the world? If so you are correct. The Baconing is all about the hero Deathspank who after his defeat of the six lords from his last game decided to wear the six thongs of justice to better help his people and rule the kingdom. Unfortunately as with all great powers the six thongs have evil versions of them too, brought about by Deathspank himself wearing all six thongs at once and also creating Anti-Spank a giant robot version of our hero. Remember kids, Anti means he’s evil.

    So our story starts with Deathspank starting to become bored of how easy his job has become since his donning of the six thongs, no one wants to mess with a guy wearing six thongs, and starts wishing something would happen so he can return to his heroic duties when suddenly Spanktopia is attacked by a Giant Deathspank robot called Anti-Spank also wearing six thongs. Our hero finds out to rid of the world of Anti-Spank he must throw his six thongs into the Bacon Fires to destroy them and his evil counterpart. He crosses the barren wastelands, Forests of tomorrow, Z.I.M.O.N’s digital dimension and other dangerous locations to locate the Bacon Fires and help his citizens along the way.

    The Baconing is an RPG with over the top humor and if you have ever seen the old T.V show called “The Tick “that’s how I describe Deathspank himself. If you take away all the weird pop-up storybook backgrounds, the in-depth conversations you have with cows and weird little orphans walking around this game would be a really boring game, what does that say about our society? As an RPG you have certain quests you have to complete to continue the story but in this game the side-quests are where it gets really weird. The side quests range from becoming an arena gladiator to even turning into a God, the God quest does not give you infinite life or the power to create babies if anyone was wondering. One of the best things about Deathspank was the inventory system due to the fact there is an option to auto-equip your best armor no matter when you pick it up, the organization on the other hand could use some work.

    Graphically the game is very crisp using cel-shading for all the game models and I had no issues with frame loss during any part of my adventure. Deathspank and the other main characters all had unique looks but many of the enemies and random NPC's walking around were only given different skins and behaved the same way. The differences between landscapes was astounding with you walking through a weird voodoo jungle that was full of skeletons and dark dreary landscapes and then suddenly you walk to the next stage over and are greeted with vivid colors and bright and sunny day. I did unfortunately notice a pattern between all the locations you visit, they share the same basic concept with one main area and then a maze of weird little hills scattered about. If I didn’t know any better I would almost say they were reskins. I also noticed that some locations with hills were hard to maneuver around due to weird placement of invisible blocks which forced you to take some routes versus others.

    I thoroughly enjoyed the combat system and its implementation on the PS3 with the DualShock controls, but that’s just because I got to dual wield a poisonous snake and a chainsaw sword. The Baconing has a variety of weapons scattered about such as flamethrowers, chainsaws, laser axes, glaives and the previously mentioned poisonous snakes. Our hero can dual wield two melee weapons in addition to having a ranged weapon of some sort and his Justice weapon. The Justice weapons are almost next to useless until you fill your Justice meter and activate them with effects ranging from a dragon airstrike to an electric stun rifle barrage. Aside from actual combat you could also technically block everything to death as you can also reflect damage using your shield, you may also charge it up to stun everyone around you.

    Honestly there isn’t much that can be wrong with the sound quality and effects in this game. The chainsaw sounds like a chainsaw and the cows have the correct moo sound. Even the music that plays throughout the levels is fitting. My absolute favorite thing about The Baconing was listening to the conversations you had with the people you met, Deathspank has a boisterous attitude no matter what he is doing even if it just saying hello to another poor British orphan.

    If you were looking for the next out of this world action-RPG, The Baconing should be your next purchase, only costing about 15$ with its amazing characters and wacky humor I found this to be one of the better Deathspank games I have played. The graphics are great, the sound is awesome and the story is unbelievable until you have played through it yourself. With only 10 hour of gameplay I found it to be just long enough so it didn’t get as repetitive as some other RPG games.