Strong Bad is awesome!
This bizarrely titled game is a far cry from point-and-click classics like Monkey Island and Beneath a Steel Sky, but for more casual players and fans of out-there humor, it makes for an entertaining time. It's pretty simple stuff, featuring minimalist gameplay and rough, stylized visuals, but it packs enough charm to make it through. You take the role of Strong Bad, a character who dishes out advice on Homestarrunner.com, and must play through five distinct episodes of point-and-click fun. Each one will take between one to three hours to complete and they each have their own self-contained storylines to follow, with most of the gameplay being tradition point-and-click stuff, but there are also odd little mini-games to add to the variety. This really is quite the unexpected charm. The stories themselves are quite varied and rarely less than entertaining, poking fun at every aspect of modern life with a deliciously sly sense of humor. The writing isn't exactly subtle but it's genuinely funny for the most part, with plenty of witticisms and wisecracks to keep you laughing as you play. The visuals are simple enough but packed full of personality, thanks to vibrant use of color, and some cool character and environmental design work. The puzzles themselves aren't overly complex and shouldn't even trouble newcomers to the genre, but they are fun, thanks mostly to the dialogue that you'll discover along the way. Overall, this isn't going to enter the point-and-click hall of fame and might be dismissed by hardcore genre fans, but if you just want a good time, this is a solid bet.
