New-to-me Games Week – PA’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3

First things first, Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 is a mouthful to say. Seriously. It is not an easy name to just type a million times, so I’m going to abbreviate it to Rain-Slick 3. Second things second, here’s my gameplay session from yesterday (spoiler alert: I enjoyed it):

Rain-Slick 3 is a retro-styled (SNES-era) RPG starring an alternate universe version of Tycho and Gabe from Penny Arcade. The world it’s set in seems to be somewhat Lovecraftian, but you don’t need to worry about the mythology of it all: just kill some freaky monsters.

I didn’t like Avadon when I played it on Monday, but I liked Rain-Slick 3. So what’s the difference? For one, the interface is easier to navigate. It’s a less complex game and so you don’t have to go through tons of screens and stats to figure things out. Mainly though, it doesn’t take itself seriously. Toward the end of my gameplay session I was fighting mutated hobos. The first area of the game has you fight mime pirates. Humor in a game goes a long way with me, and Rain-Slick 3 had enough to keep me interested.

It’s also fairly fast paced. There are tons of creatures to slay, and when one battle is done you can just go into the next one because all health is restored after each fight. That makes and unbelievably huge difference: it keeps the game flowing. You can just go from battle to battle and kill everything without worrying if you need to use a potion or something. This is literally my favorite thing about the game and it’s an incredible idea. This alone is enough to keep me playing this game. I would expect to see me do some more streams of it in the not-too-distant future.