VGPRO.com | On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Review

On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Review

Review written by Shake-Zula on May 23, 2008 at 09:49 PM

7/10

With the rise of the popular comic, Penny Arcade, brought forth an opportunity for the creators of the comic to dabble in what they hold so dear, the video game industry.

On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness is set in a morbid past, with the main characters of Tycho and Gabriel chasing after a giant robot in New Arcadia. Your created character joins in on the fight with his trusty rake after the giant robot easily crushes your humble dwelling on Desperation Street. After a few casual encounters with the Fruit Fuckers, and gaining a feline companion, you are placed along side Gabrielr and Tycho in combat.

The combat is not the quickest style there has ever been. Your turn is decided by how quickly you choose which action to perform, and which enemy (or ally) to perform this action upon. The most basic actions are using the inventory bag to disperse both potions or healing aides and performing a standard attack.

Each of these functions are based on the next. If you wish to attack, you must let your inventory become accessible, and then allow your attack to become accessible. This is frustrating when attempting to perform a special attack, but it makes every single American Psycho-esque fight against hobos and clowns a bit more interesting. As if the clowns bleeding paint and collecting giant ham hocks from the dead hobos didn't make this game odd enough.

Once you meet up with Tycho and Gabriel, you are forced into combat against multiple Fruit Fuckers, along with a higher level Fruit Fucker. Once you defeat these enemies, you are then given the ability to travel to Tycho's nieces house where she then instructs you to find clues in an attempt to answer the question of who, or what, is controlling the giant robot.

There are multiple locations you can travel to, from the ghetto to a pier, and there is plenty of back tracking involved in this game. From one area to the next, you must find clues and talk to people on the street, these people will tell you go somewhere else to find another random clue, or just to help them in a way to gain items to further the storyline. All of this is well done, of course, but the constant bouncing around areas like you're a white ball on a ping-pong table becomes rather dull.

With every game the discussion of the amazing, polished and shiny graphics come in to play. These game is in the same ballpark as Sam and Max when it comes to character animation. The fight scenes are well done though, as all the powers are displayed in a very nice fashion. (Such as when you're smashed in the head with a glass bottle by a hobo, there are shards of glass flying across your avatar.)

The cut scenes are in the standard Penny-Arcade art style, and look incredibly polished. Individual frames in most cut scenes are divided up as the comic would be, with black bars between each change in setting or action. This brings you back to realizing you're playing a game based on a comic, and unlike Iron Man, it doesn't suck.

Over all, I rather enjoy this game, it has provided with me a lot of entertaining moments. There is plenty of game time to be invested in this title, eight to ten hours if you attempt to unlock every achievement, but it isn't a piece of perfection.