Penny arcade stole ideas out of my brain

I feel like I am going to have to start wearing a hat fashioned out of tinfoil. Shiny side down of course.

The fresh new Xbox live arcade release of Penny Arcade's "On the Rain-slick precipice of darkness" is the one that I call home. Lately I have been getting pretty tired of turn based rpgs and was hoping that Lost Odyssey would cure me of the and it did for about 4.5 days. My main problem with them is I fall asleep. I like this new Penny Arcade game because I can stay awake... well that and they combined three of the best ideas for an rpg ever

For one reason or the other a lot of video games put me to sleep. It could be the middle of the day with the sun blinding me, directly burning my retinas and I still doze off. I blame the un-participation of turn based RPGs coupled with the repetitive ambient "soothing music". Sometimes the music is too much and is pretty much the reason why I quit playing Mass Effect the chime at the title screen was usually almost enough to get me drooling as the dreamworld beckoned to me.

I have always claimed that Mario RPG was one of my favorite games of all time for one simple reason if you hit the button right before you attack it made your attack more damaging and if you hit the button right before you were about to recieve an attack you would block. This sort of minimal added participation in the battle sequences is enough for me and the blocking part at least is present in Precipice from almost the get go.

Alright this should be almost enough to keep me from falling asleep. Reason two however is just as good. Going back in time over a decade I was witness to another amazing element to turn based RPG. Xenogears on PS1 had a combo system built into its attacks. The higher your level the longer and more damaging your combos were. These combos were preformed by a stream of buttons that had to be pressed in order. The makers were probably thinking if you can't go real time at least make a battle sequence real time within the turn based fighting system. On a side note you could also jump into a giant robot with crazy attacks involving lasers. Precipice doesn't have this. Well it has a giant robot but its bad it crushes your house. Thats why you start going through the game. Side side not highlight of game so far is after the robot crushed my house in the cut scene and I got control of my character for the first time I talked to a NPC directly to my left and his words were something to the effect of "HOLY SHIT DID YOU SEE THAT GIANT FUCKING ROBOT!" Ok fully awake now looks like this is going to be a good game and I will not regret the 1600 Microsoft points i spent on it.

Yeah thats right I did say three reasons don't worry I can count too. I just wanted to separate the third because I hadn't seen it in a game before but it is the one thing I have always wanted. A system to reward you for overkills. I have always loved getting a bad guy to the point of almost dying and then unleashing a giant attack on him and killing the fuck out of him to rub it in. Who knows why this feels so good... well actually I blame the wedgies in elementary school. Although the characters can't really feel it and it won't un rip all my underwear it still feels good. WAIT WAIT WAIT these gentleman scholars, these magnificent men, these glowing with radiant awesomeness punch woe in the face sexy bitches give you a reason to love overkills. There is an over kill meter and every-time you do it you get a permanent attack bonus. Yeah I jizzed to. For this reason alone I would have Gabe and Tycho's gay babies.

The one and only draw back to this game is there is no button for a fist bump or "ladies lift yer shirts"