Are you an attractive person? If so (and even if not), Telltale has a new game for you! The first episodic adventure for the Wii kicks off today with Homestar Ruiner, the first episode of (deep breath) Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People. Adventure games on consoles are hit or miss, but Telltale has taken the time to design the entire experience around the Wii.

Is Strong Bad a hit or a miss? Read on and find out.

What is Strong Bad? What? Have you been on the internet at any point in the last few years? It may not be as popular these days, but the Homestar Runner internet cartoon series once set the inter-tubes ablaze. This episode opens up with Strong Bad checking his e-mail on the ever-dependable Lappy. A letter from a fan prompts our beefy protagonist to go kick his rival Homestar’s ass. Naturally, this doesn’t go according to plan, and Strong Bad may even have to save Homestar before the day is over.

What’s the best way to bring the adventure genre to a console? This is the dilemma that developers have struggled with for years. Point and click interfaces usually vary between frustrating and downright aggravating if you’re stuck with an analog stick. Luckily, the Wii makes things easier — just treat the Wii remote like a mouse. This is the exact approach that Telltale took with Strong Bad. No need for poorly executed motion controls, just click and our lovely protagonist walks over to the pointer. Click on an object to interact with it. If you’ve ever played an adventure game, you know the drill.

Even if you pretend that the Wiimote is a cool future mouse, the Wii still isn’t a PC. You can’t take the exact interface from Sam & Max and paste in Strong Bad artwork. The Wii remote’s pointer, while miles ahead of plain old analog sticks, still requires a little more finesse than a standard mouse. To keep the experience from becoming frustrating, Telltale has designed the gameplay around Nintendo’s little white box.

First, the entire interface revolves around icons. Rather than clicking on small lines of text to advance a conversation, you click on contextual icons. Some of these are topics of conversation, others indicate the tone of your response (ala Mass Effect). At first, this was a little confusing, but I figured out what each icon represented pretty quickly. Unfortunately, this does mean that conversations aren’t as involved as they were in Sam & Max. You generally don’t have multiple responses for each topic. It also isn’t as clear when the conversation on that particular topic is over. There is a clear trade-off between complexity and ease of use. The same design philosophy extends to the rest of the user interface, you also have icons on screen to open your inventory, the map, or photos. It’s all very easy to navigate. The on-screen pointer has even been bumped up a couple of pixels from the usual mouse pointer size. PC players might not care, but it should look just right on a Wii owner’s television. The end result is a user interface that has been simplified, but not dumbed down, with Wii owners in mind.

The writing continues to impress. Telltale’s writers have always penned some of the best comedy in the gaming industry. Few games have made me laugh as much in recent years as the Sam & Max episodes. Strong Bad’s humor is of a different style than Sam & Max, but there still are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. The Chapman brothers worked closely with Telltale’s team from day one, and it shows in the final product. The entire game is a love letter to fans of the cartoons. It isn’t just the story line or the graphics (although both are faithful), it’s also in all of the little extras. There are hidden collectibles all over the place, like trading cards or missing pages from a videogame instruction manual. You can create your own Teen Girl Squad comics and play the Snake Boxer game. There are costume pieces lying around that you can put on in the photobooth. You can take pictures or write e-mails and send them to your Wii friends. All of these extras are optional, you won’t get punished for skipping them. However, they do add to the overall experience.

Sure, the game is funny, the graphics look nice, and there are lots of neat extras, but this is an adventure game, and the puzzles will make or break the experience. My feelings are a little mixed in this regard. The puzzles are interesting, and everything fits together fairly well. I just wish that the game was a little harder. I don’t think there was a time where I was truly challenged. For most players, this won’t be an issue. The puzzles are clever and they fit the tone of the series. Hardcore adventure games, however, might be a little disappointed.

Homestar Ruiner is another top notch adventure game from the boys and girls at Telltale. It is obvious that the developers put a lot of thought into how to refine the experience for WiiWare, and the user interface alone should position Strong Bad as the template for future Wii adventure games. The extra love and attention that Telltale has put into the title is just the icing on an already delicious cake. It’s a little on the easy side, but I can forgive that because the experience is great. If you’re a fan of the genre or of the Strong Bad cartoons, the episode is well worth the ten bucks. Wii owners now have something to look forward to on WiiWare for the next few months.

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