Considering the enduring popularity of the two things - Diablo-style dungeon-crawling and comedy - DeathSpank attempts to merge as one, it's rather amazing it's taken this long for the two to come together as naturally as they have here.
Downloadable Game of the Week: DeathSpank
Playstation 3 via Playstation Network and Xbox 360 Live Arcade
Hothead Games/EA
Price: $US15 ($NZ20
DeathSpank starts off a little slowly, and there are a handful of things it does adequately but never expertly.
The sensation of combat Diablo absolutely nails never feels quite so satisfying here, and between the simplicity of the quest designs and the modest ambitions of the game's comedic writing and voice acting, this likely will be neither the best-playing dungeon-crawler nor the funniest game you play this year.
Fortunately, what DeathSpank doesn't do amazingly well, it does more than well enough - so much so that the experience actually improves rather than degrades once the novelty of comedic dungeon-crawling wears off.
The quests, while not terribly ambitious in terms of variety or design, are at least numerous, as is the bounty of armour, weapons and items waiting to be discovered.
The depth of the combat improves with the ability to cast new spells and even combine special attacks.
And the world's fleeting resemblance to an illustrated pop-up book (without the actual pop-up animation) works in tandem with the amusing overall tone to create a universe that, imperfections or not, is a whole lot of fun to explore.
