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SBCG4AP Episode 1: Homestar Ruiner

Before the birth of Telltale Games, the point-and-click adventure game was at risk of dying a slow and painful death. The popularity of the genre saw a recent unexpected and swift decline following a massive success in the '80's and '90's, with LucasArts being one of the only companies still putting out adventures like the Monkey Island series and Grim Fandango. When the company cancelled a new installment in the niche Sam & Max series for no apparent reason, many employees took this as their cue to leave LucasArts and start Telltale Games, who pretty much resurrected the point-and-click game single-handedly.

Telltale introduced the concept of episodic gaming with the Bone and Sam & Max series', with the prospect of having a brand new story to put even the greatest of wits to the test every month having fans salivating at the greatness of the new point-and-click messiah. This month we can finally see the wonder of what happens when some of the greatest minds in the downloadable gaming industry strike a deal with some of the greatest minds in the Flash cartoon industry.

To the unenlightened ones reading this, Telltale's new episodic gaming series is based on the strange Flash world of Homestarrunner.com, a website created by Matt and Mike Chapman which focusses on the day to day shenanigans of the inhabitants of Free Country, USA (check out the website if you want more back story; the cartoons have to be watched to fully appreciate their greatness). Whilst Homestar Runner gets his name in the website and various different cartoons, the real star of the site is Strong Bad, who reads out and answers fan mail in a mocking yet hilarious kind of way, and often takes up reader challenges or questions resulting in mini cartoon adventures. So it's no surprise then that the self-proclaimed lord of all things cool and attractive is the star of this new game.

The game is peppered with little references and jokes...

Our adventure kicks off when the wrestling mask clad anti-hero is doing his regular email checking routine when he gets an interesting email from one of his readers. The 'Frenchie' questions Mr. Bad as to why he hasn't pulverised his arch-nemesis Homestar Runner yet. A cataclysmic chain of events ensue, and Strong Bad ends up with a disgraced and depressed Homestar moping around his domain with no sign of him leaving at any time soon. To reclaim his house so that he can check his email in peace once again, Strong Bad must get Homestar's dignity back – and it ain't gonna be easy...

Navigating your new environment is incredibly easy: point with your Wii cursor, and click where you want to go. The game world is pretty small, with only a few major areas and characters to talk to, but it's the way in which you interact with Free Country which really matters. As you click about, you'll be able to talk to characters, check out and/or pick up random objects lying about and try using your inventory items on everything you can; even if your item isn't designed to work on a specific in-game object, the reaction given by Strong Bad, the object or another character can be hilarious.

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