Every now and then, a must have game appears on the Xbox Live list, it’s very rare but at last another has joined that very short list. Yes, Penny Arcade: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One is a mouthful to say but a dream to play.
Precipice is an interesting mix of real time and turn based mechanics dashed with a bit of adventure. Precipice starts of in New Arcadia, a weird and twisted town with equally weird and twisted inhabitants. Once you have created your character from a generous selection of customizable items and clothing, you start off. You are taught a few basics and then you are let loose on this twisted and very funny game.
The plot itself starts with your house being demolished by a huge robot, on your way to find out what is going on you bump into Gabe and Tyco, who form the Startling Developments Detective Agency. After some brief introductions you team up with them and use all of their available skills to get to the bottom of this ever deepening mystery. The story is very funny, you will meet numerous characters through the game, all well represented and well animated, but do remember, this is an 18+ game so expect plenty of swearing.
The presentation of the game is truly original, it has the look of a comic, using comic style panels and fonts, some of the animation is fixed, with scrolling text, whilst other parts are fully animated, it is a great blend and helps give depth to the game.
Controlling your character ranges from the simple explore sections, using RS to move and A to interact with items and characters. When you go into proximity of enemies you will have a few more buttons to contend with. At first it is quite simple, at the bottom of the screen you have 3 circles, one is your normal attack, one your special attack and the other your items. Once one is used, it will take time to charge up the circle again, during this time you are open for attack, therefore a well timed press of RT will perform a block and if lucky, a counter attack. A normal attack is pulled off by a simple press of the A button, choose your enemy and let rip, the Y button uses your special, again select the enemy to attack and then go through a short mini game to get the most power from your move, this can be from simple button mashing to a well timed press of the A button. The items inventory is simple and quick to navigate, so applying health and power ups is quick and easy, in fact anyone with previous experience of turn based fighting will find it very familiar.
The game gets bit more difficult when you have other members in your team, early on Gabe and Tycho join in, allowing you to also control these guys, selecting them with the RS during battle, they have identical controls to our own character but different moves. In addition to team members, you also have support characters, so far I have gained two, my favourite being a small cat with an amazing special move, these support characters only have one special move to assist you in battles, once used they will wait around, charging up, thankfully these cant take any damage so you don’t have to worry about them. During some of the larger battles it can get a bit confusing as you have three characters to worry about health and attacking, at the same time you also need to remember to block or you wont last long.
As you play the adventure part of the game, you are able to collect plenty of extras from art, music and movies, this really adds value to the game as they are not necessary to the game but make you seek out more battle with tiny rude robots and crazy mini artists. Precipice has the usual ranking system, the more fights you win the higher your rank, all characters in your group also can rank up, and at certain points you will gain new special moves. After each fight you will also gain items dropped by the enemies and also on occasion robot parts, these can be used to upgrade your weapons.
I was pleasantly surprised at how good this game was, not being a massive fan of the genre I was not expecting to be drawn so quickly into the story, and due to this and many other great plus points it is one of the few titles that will have me waiting patiently for the next instalment. A great original title that does Xbox Live proud.
