In
this age of YouTube, it’s easier than ever for people to showcase
their talent and creativity (and sometimes, admittedly, their lack
thereof) online. Online comics, spoofs, home movies, and cartoons
have captured Internet audiences and gained loyal followings of people
of all ages and from all different countries. Since 2000, brothers
Mike and Matt Chapman have entertained countless people with their
series of Flash cartoons featuring the fictional world of Free Country,
its dim-witted, athletic hero Homestar
Runner, and his posse of cartoon companions. Their website, which
they pay for by themselves through the sale of merchandise, is home
to a plethora of short videos and comics featuring pop culture references
and surreal humor. Given its immense success, therefore, it is easy
to see why Telltale
Games saw potential in the Homestar universe for a series of episodic
adventures.

The
game starts with one of the site’s special features, Strong
Bad Emails, in which Strong Bad reads his email and provides a characteristically
cynical, uncouth response. This time, someone suggests that he beat
up Homestar. Naturally, Strong Bad finds the idea attractive. However,
Homestar has just entered the Free Country USA Triannual Race to the
End of the Race, and his girlfriend Marzipan is throwing him a party,
which makes Strong Bad jealous. So begins a hilarious, inane, completely
original adventure that is different from any other I’ve ever
played.

The
game is set in the Homestar Runner universe, which is crudely animated
but adequately fits the game’s cartoonish atmosphere. You do
have to wonder about some of the characters having no eyes, for example,
or unattached heads, but it’s all in the game’s original
style, and it is rather amusing. The interface is easy to use. In
the upper left corner sits a toolbar with links to your inventory,
a map, and a camera; in the opposite corner is a link to the Main
Menu.

The voice work, however,
is what really stands out, even more so because the majority of the
characters – aside from Marzipan – are voiced by the same person,
co-creator Matt Chapman, who does an outstanding job lending an original
voice to each character and hamming up the script. I may as well mention
that the script is a riot; from the very beginning, you’ll be
laughing at Strong Bad’s sarcastic remarks and some of the absurd
situations presented in the game.

Speaking
of absurd, though, that’s the best word I can think of to describe
the puzzles. There is very little logic to this game. You’ll
pick up a lot of random inventory items on the way, and there’s
little rhyme or reason as to how they should be used. Thankfully,
there is a built-in hints system (which you can adjust) should you
get stumped. I actually found the puzzles to be clever and witty;
just difficult to figure out.

There are also some fun
mini-games that have no effect on the outcome of the game, but merely
serve to help your Awesomeness level. My favorite was the Teen Girl
Squad comics, wherein you help Strong Bad write a comic strip in which
a series of teen girls die in as gory as manner as possible. You can
do it as often as you like, trying each time to make their deaths
more and more brutal, and if you’re the kind of person who enjoys
indulging in shameless Schadenfreude, it’s totally worth it.

I
also found the dialogue system to be a source of irritation. It’s
set up so that when you click on a character, a box opens up with
little icons that indicate, sometimes rather poorly, what topic Strong
Bad will bring up. After you’ve clicked on an icon and exhausted
the conversation, though, the icon remains. Sometimes you can click
on it again and continue that topic, and other times you’ll
only repeat the same conversation – and there’s no way to figure
it out short of clicking on the icon again and hoping for the best.
I actually like having icon-based dialogue, but it’s not very
organized and quickly becomes cumbersome.

Overall,
despite its faults, Homestar Ruiner is
a pretty enjoyable game, a lighthearted cartoon romp with a great
sense of humor and an original flavor. It suffers from some problems
with its puzzle and dialogue design, but it is fun to play, and the
developers incorporated a lot of details along with a great script
— even the Main Menu is entertaining! Even if you’ve never
heard of Homestar Runner or watched any of the videos, you can still
have a great time with this game, and it will definitely inspire you
to go to the website. Plus, you’ll get some great cynical one-liners
to use on your friends!

System Requirements:

• OS: Windows XP / Vista
• Processor: 1.5GHz
• RAM: 256MB (512MB recommended)
• Video card: 32MB 3D-accelerated
  video card (64MB recommended)
• DirectX 9