Developer: Explosm, Skeleton Crew Studios
Publisher: Serenity Forge
Platform: PC, Switch
Tested on: PC
Cyanide & Happiness – Freakpocalypse – Review
Cyanide & Happiness, otherwise known as Explosm, has been a hilarious ongoing series of comics on the internet for many years now. The series mainly got known for its very offensive gags, which mock every possible thing you can imagine. Because of its success, the creators have also dabbled with video clips, as well as games. They have had a prior project, which somewhat bombed after its release. Now, with a different developer and a totally different concept, we get to play Freakpocalypse. While being marketed as a full game, be warned, the current version on Steam is only the first part of a trilogy, and basically, everything you see in the promotional trailer is not in the game (yet?).
Story
The story of the marketed game should be about the end of the world, where freaks are a byproduct of a certain apocalypse. Nonetheless, this ‘part’ of the game only offers a short introduction, where we get to know Coop, who is considered the biggest loser ever. When getting called to the principal’s office, and also hearing he’s such a loser from the school’s head honcho, he wants to try and work on his image.
You will not get more than the above in this game. The story content is slim and, as mentioned above, this is only a prologue. Hardly anything of the actual story is included in this version.
Graphics
If you’re a fan of these iconic cartoons or comics, you’ll immediately see all the characters come to life in this game. Many familiar faces roam the halls of the school and surrounding area, with a fair bit of attention to details. There is a lot to explore, albeit in the form of static objects you can click on. The world is colorful and everything moves quite smoothly. In a way, this one resembles the appearance of the last two South Park games, albeit in the typical Cyanide & Happiness style.
Sound
The sound design is fairly impressive. There is a lot of voice acting present, which makes the game come to life even more. In terms of music, you’ll recognize the tune from the cartoons, which gives it a certain authenticity. We can’t say more than that the sound quality is superb.
Gameplay
Freakpocalypse is a fairly standard point-and-click game when it comes to the overall gameplay mechanics. You basically run around, click on everything in sight, collect items, use or combine them, and progress. The game has a vast number of things you can interact with, unlocking side-missions as you go. If you are only into the main story, we’ll immediately tell you that this game is only about two to four hours in length, and that is if you still interact with many characters and objects.
As stated above, if you dive into the side missions, you’ll find a fun and entertaining experience, mainly thanks to the many different characters and objects in this world. Nonetheless, some dialogues don’t always hit the right mark and a few jokes are being repeated, albeit with slightly different wording. We did enjoy that there is so much to interact with, but not everything is as qualitative as you’d expect. That being said, exploring the world can be rewarding for those who want to get a few laughs out of this game.
In terms of controls, it’s a bit hard to recommend a specific format. We found a mouse very convenient when having to interact with objects and people, but we enjoyed a controller more when it came to moving around in the fairly small world of the game. We played the bulk of the experience with the controller, and that ended up being fairly pleasant.
Conclusion
Even though the content in Cyanide & Happiness’s Freakpocalypse is quite nice and qualitative, it’s too short to be called a full game. The trailer for this game shows a lot of content, that is actually not in this game, which was also not mentioned or marketed as being only the first part of a trilogy. While we enjoyed the experience, we would recommend not buying it for its current asking price and hope a cheap bundle is released when all parts are finished. If we have to be completely honest, the developers are very guilty of false advertising by showing a lot of content in the ‘launch’ trailer for ‘Freakpocalypse’ and not mention that this is content for different ‘games’.
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