I really enjoyed playing DeathSpank (DS), and DeathSpank: Thongs Of Virtue (DS:TOS), so I was more than a little interested to hear that a third DeathSpank, The Baconing, was being released. Or, in fact, had been released – I’d completely missed any lead-up publicity! A quick trip through the interweb archives didn’t tell me an awful lot more, but apparently this is the first DS game that Ron Gilbert wasn’t involved in. Apparently (again) they’ve changed combat to try to include more strategy and less button mashing. We’ll see.
At the end of DS:TOS, DeathSpank had defeated Evil and retrieved all of the Thongs of Virtue. As we begin DeathSpank: The Baconing (DS:TB), we find DeathSpank running Spanktopia, a future Utopia, where no more evilness exists because DeathSpank has dispensed Justice a little too well. And he’s bored. That doesn’t last long, however, as a huge mechanical monster begins to destroy Spanktopia, and thus begins the latest adventure.
Apparently DeathSpank has been wearing all of the Thongs of Virtue at the same time, and this has created the AntiSpank. The only way to stop this creature is to find the Fires of Bacon and use them to destroy the Thongs.
The graphical style, that of mostly cardboard-cutout scenery on a rolling-log world, hasn’t changed, though of course the actual scenes and scenery have. There are new enemies, though so far they don’t look too much different to the old, though with new armour and names.
Some old friends, such as the Thongolith researcher, and the Locksmith make a return, though they seem more cameos than taking any real part in the story. So far, anyway.
Apart from the expected scenery, armour and weapon changes, I’m not seeing any real changes to the format. I’ll see how things go once I get past the first boss-fight. So far though, we have another DeathSpank winner!
