Xbox 360
Strong Badia the Free is the second in the five-part Strong Bad Episodic Adventure Series. Expect gratuitous toplessness (enough to shame even Gordon Ramsay), frequent comic violence and as much rambling as you can fit in your trouser holes.
The adventure focuses on Strongbad's, at first, one man struggle against the fatocracy of the King of Town who has placed him under house arrest for failing to pay his email taxes. After escaping house arrest Strong Bad must amass an army to advance upon the King of Town's black fortress to seize power for the people (although Strong Bad is the closest to human that the universe gets and he wears a wrestling mask all the time, so who knows).
The controls are identical to the previous game so the mouse interacts with the environment and other characters, with inventory screens accessed via the menu bar, so far, so similar. To prevent monotony Telltale has created a new (at least visually) menu and map and gives the player the shovel and metal detector from the get go, which is a nice touch as treasure hunting is more intrinsic than it was in the first outing of the series. Instead of the Telltale trademark three-puzzle-per-game setup, this time the action is focused around one overarching quest to recruit followers to storm the King of Town's bastion. Each character has their own section of land and to convert them requires a different tactic, from destroying Strong Sad's carefully constructed democracy to interpreting the bizarre rumblings of Homsar. It's a strong move as it allows characters to express themselves more individually.
Generally the humour hits the spot, the cutscene exposition after converting each character's land is especially funny as it takes the form of a World War Two 'This Week at the Front' style featurette relating the events in a very nationalistic way. However some of the jokes are very esoteric. This seems to be systematic of the episode overall, it's mostly an entertaining and vaguely challenging game but certain sections slow the pace down, the anti-climactic end Risk style combat can be repetitive to the point of being boring as you have to work out which characters are effective against the others via trial and error.
As ever, the Wii is more suited to this interactive cartoon style of gaming and the Wii version has a couple of exclusive features like the option to send screenshots and emails in game to Wii friends. Turning the focus away from the strict web series based antics of Strong Bad answering emails makes this tale more accessible to newcomers in a way that would have made more sense to come in the first episode.
Series fans aren't left out in the cold however as there's lots of new unlockables and the cast of characters is greater than ever. Comedy is obviously subjective but most adventure game fans know how to have a laugh and Strong Badia the Free will give you at least an evening's entertainment. Still not convinced? Then listen to the pleas of Strongbad himself
"We should all live in a place where we are free. Free to pick our friends. Free to pick our noses! And most importantly... Free to pick our friends' noses! That's why I, Strong Bad of the mighty tighty-whities, declare war on The Of Town! Who's with me?"
