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GameShark recently published a new review of Hothead Games' Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode 1. Based on the characters from the Penny Arcade comic strip, the episodic adventure game allows players to create a character and step into an adventure with Tycho and Gabe. GameShark gave the game a letter grade of B.

From the review:

The support characters aren’t the only characters with special attacks as you, Gabe and Tycho all have “Overkill” attacks that are triggered by mini-games. For example, Gabriel’s attack has you mashing buttons to fill up a vertical bar. Once full, the bar descends and you press A again to stop the bar within the specified area. Getting the timing just right unleashes the full amount of extra damage as well as gives the opportunity to kill an enemy with the Overkill attack, netting you an Overkill bonus that grants you a permanent damage boost stat increase. If more than one character’s Overkill attack is charged up you can choose to forego the mini-games and go into a combo attack instead.

The combat is fast paced and well implemented. At the beginning, keeping an eye on your party and applying healing items appropriately is essential however you soon hit a point where it’s rare to die. This results in a situation where battles aren’t frustrating, but at the same time they’re not particularly challenging either. It’s still fun though, and once you get used to the combat you can learn how fights ebb and flow so that you constantly are attacking and never giving your enemies the chance to cause damage.

GameShark: Penny Arcade Adventures Review

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Penny Arcade Adventures (add to watch list)

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