Strong Bad Episode 2 - Strong Badia the Free review (PC/Wii)

Any game that starts out with the main character getting a Running Man-style head-exploding collar attached to him is already in my good books.

Sadly, Strong Bad's head does not actually explode messily if he steps out of line, which in gaming terms is called 'cheating'. Bah.

"Ow! My Freedom!"

The aim and structure of this episode is a little different from the first, which nicely mixes things up enough to offset any nagging feeling that you're just playing the same game again (more on that shortly).

What caused Strong Bad to get the aforementioned neck collar was his defiance of the King of Town's new email tax that he refuses to pay.

With the rest of the town up in arms over the King's stupid laws, Strong Bad decrees his self-created country, Strong Badia, an independent nation . and every other person in town does the same.

Strong Bad must annex all these other new nations in order to reach the King's castle and take over the country. This is all played out on a fun Risk-style board, and along with several new locations helps to make this new episode feel fairly fresh.

Not quite enough, unfortunately. There is a distinct taste of a TV series about Episode 2. Similar locations and characters have just a few new jokes and storylines to mix things up. Is that acceptable in gaming?

If you seriously don't mind paying money for new jokes, new story and new puzzles, but otherwise it being the same game, then great.

I think Strong Badia the Free gets away with it somewhat, with enough new characters and locations, not to mention the new board game style, to still keep things fresh.

I do worry though that come Episode 4 the series might be feeling extremely stale. Still, let's not worry about the future yet.

"They'll be expecting a well-disciplined fighting force, so we'll have surprise on our side."

What I'm more worried about now is the jokes and puzzles. They're just not as good as the first game. They're still there, with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments or taxing challenges, but not in any way to the standard of Homestar Ruiner.

The defeat of the monstrous Taranchula, the Peace Draft Wheel of Fortune, the Homsar Reservation (similar to the Mystery Vortex in Sam and Max Hit the Road), and pretty much everything Homestar Runner says are all excellent though. Certainly worth the entry fee alone. The proper Risk board game at the end and the subsequent battles are all great too.

There are a lot of good things then, but the laughs aren't always there to back the events up (unless it's from Homestar). The challenge is missing too. The board game, for example, may be great, but it's just too easy and can be done first try, as are many of the puzzles. The dance contest is particularly pathetic.

I didn't need any help at all from the game's hint system, which is good because they seemed to be broken.

Now, I don't know if any of these will be present in the final release, but I discovered an alarming amount of bugs during my play time. The hints system didn't work as mentioned, a character's speech dropped completely at one point, and Strong Bad's eyes occasionally disappeared.

I hope these all get ironed out, as they certainly weren't present in Episode 1.

"What brand of idiocy have I stumbled upon here?"

Strong Badia the Free tries to be something a bit different from Homestar Ruiner, and thankfully it (mostly) succeeds.

However, it does so at the expense of several laughs and challenging puzzles. I can recommend it, and if you've wisely subscribed to the whole season you won't be disappointed with your latest download.

Homestar Runner is particularly hilarious for the entire game, especially his 'war stories'. I do worry about the lasting appeal of this particular series, however.

It's already beginning to feel slightly stale and we're only on Episode 2. Telltale - prove me wrong!

7.5/10

Chris 'The Tingler' Capel