First Impressions - DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue (demo)

DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue

PSN Demo

Release Date: September 21, 2010 (PSN); September 22, 2010 (XBLA)

Date of Play: September 21, 2010

• It is hard to shake the feeling that I am playing the exact same game as the first DeathSpank. The title menu is the same, the menu music is the same, and the animated intro isn’t the same but it’s close enough. The whole thing feels like a rehash. That’s not necessarily terrible, but I hope there’s something more here. 
• I wonder if your save carries over from the first or if they have some way of explaining why the mighty hero has randomly lost all of his cool shit and gone back to square one with his abilities. I won’t be able to tell without buying the full game, which I have not yet done, but I’m curious.
• Just as I make a comment about the game perhaps lacking new ideas, I actually begin to play and the first weapon I pick up is a gun. Hmm. Intriguing. Not sure if that’s good or bad yet.
• Come to think of it, the gun is just a retooling of the crossbow from the last game isn’t it? Never mind.
• Already there’s a little prick of an enemy who likes to shoot me and then run away forcing me to blast it with my gun/pea shooter. I hate enemies like that. So annoying.
• Unsurprising revelation: just like the first game, the dialog is the best part of this demo. I just hope it’s up to the quality of the writing of the first game. So far so good, though. I’ve already had a number of laughs. 
• Oh great. The game is already resorting to bathroom humor. This is a good sign. Yeah. 

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How I Long for a Story that Stands Alone

Why must everything be sequelled to death these days?

Why is it that we have totally lost our ability to use our imaginations?

Why is it that we insist on seeing every last detail of every last story told in pointless sequel after pointless sequel?

Why is it that we are no longer content with one satisfying story that tells its tale, completes its arc, and leaves us alone?  Instead, we insist that retreads of once unique story worlds will be forced upon us time and time again by marketing executives who are just looking out for the bottom line, but who are doing it by giving us what we seem to want.

How many more times will the tragedy of the Matrix sequels have to play itself out before we realize that one interesting story should be enough?  How many unnecessary trilogies will we suffer through before we realize that sometimes it's good NOT to see what happens next in a universe?  How many times will a compelling story be stretched out over too many movies, too many games, too many books, before we catch on and begin to yearn for the days when a story could appear, amaze, and then disappear, to forever live in our memories as a terrific one-off experience that we will cherish?

The news that I feared would come, that I knew would come, has apparently surfaced.  District 9 was one of the most fantastic movies I've seen in quite some time.  Its ambiguous ending was refreshing in that it didn't seem so much like an obvious sequel hint as it did an ending that closed up what it needed to without explaining too much.

I don't want to see another movie in that universe.  

I've seen what I want to.  I don't want to know anymore.  I don't want to be told any more.  I don't want the magic, the uniqueness, of the original to be spoiled by a pointless, money-driven, over-explanatory sequel that can't hope to stand up to the wonder instilled in me by the original movie. 

But it seems that even for this refreshingly original movie, a sequel will soon enough be shoved down my throat.

When will we learn?  

Do we really want District 10 to turn into The Matrix: Reloaded?

I certainly don't.

Down with the sequel!