Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 1: Homestar Ruiner

At times like this, it's a wonder that adventure games ever went off the rails.

Clocking in at the better part of four hours, with a cost of 1000 Wii Points, each episode of Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People will give hope monthly to those looking to support WiiWare.

Bucketloads of humour, an involving and relatively challenging gameplay experience, lots of references and continuity for long time fans, and generally a fun game to play.

A great start to the series - if they're all this good, we'll snap them all up. [Oct 2008, p.92]

Four hours of laugh-out-loud dialogue is easily worth 1,000 points. [Nov 2008, p.85]

I found that the game’s humor and entertaining quest made it well worth the $10 investment ($8.95 for the PC). Like many adventure games, the replay value is not tremendously high, but the promise of future downloadable episodes helps to resolve this issue.

As a point-and-click game it doesn't do anything ground breaking, but all of the window dressing is fantastic.

Wii owners should consider themselves lucky that Homestarrunner.com and Tell Tale games have given the Wii a bizzare yet awesome game series. It is well worth the investment and can be enjoyed by just about anyone without being dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. If you are a long time fan of the cartoon, consider it a 9.

Strong Bad is funny, varied and just the right length for an episodic game. The puzzles aren't particularly strong - though they're as good as anything in the recent Sam & Max games - but this is balanced out by the additional stuff to find and muck about with.

Strong Bad’s first videogame adventure definitely proves to be the perfect game for not only long-term fans of the online web episodes of Homestar Runner, but point-and-click fans that enjoy a weird sense of humour and zany puzzles in small doses.

Comical catnip for fans. [Nov 2008, p.72]

The amount of content and the price point is just on the right side of comfortable, with the story trading ambition for authenticity. As a result, this first game can be called 'pretty good', but it’s still a little short on awesomeness.

Unless you happen to be an enemy of all things cool and funny, the first installment of Strong Bad is where it's at. This new monthly series shows tons of promise, and the next episode, Strong Badia the Free, looks even more delightfully ludicrous.

However, it appears that they weren't able to perfectly hit their stride in terms of puzzle creation, and this episode definitely has some of the early-season jitters that the first few episodes of Sam & Max had.

Unfortunately, the first episode doesn’t definitively establish itself as a proper videogame as much as it is a charming adaptation of the Flash cartoon. As well as Telltale Games did at offering a tremendous service to fans of Homestar Runner, they are only occasionally able to prove that playing a cartoon is better than watching one.

This is worth picking up even if you're not attractive.

SBCGfAP is packed with little extras and mini-games, although none provide more than a few minutes of diversion. The real fun is discovering all of the inside jokes from the series plastered throughout.

SB:Ep1 is a mixed bag; it's funny, but can get old during a sustained playthrough, and it's got some neat puzzles, but they're presented in a disjointed, directionless way that'll have players doing things not because the story or characters dictate them, but simply due to odd item placement and situation setups that seem like they should be done just because.

While demand for this style of gaming and for Homestar-licensed products both peaked a while ago, it's an enjoyably goofy diversion.

Overall my suggestion would be, stick the game’s suggestions (hints) on high, enjoy it as a constant stream of brain-dead semi funny entertainment, in a universe you are probably familiar with, and get as much stress-free enjoyment from what admittedly, feels like a pretty polished episodic game.

A polished, if uneventfully designed episode, better suited to the Homestar Runner crazy-go-nut.

Strong Bad can be very funny, and this first episode is a great start for the fans. We just wish it were longer and cheaper.