DeathSpank Preview

GamesRadar has cranked out a quick preview of Hothead Games' action RPG DeathSpank, with a sprinkling of commentary from lead designer Ron Gilbert.
(One of the side quest chains in the game involves a farmer named Bobblewood,) says Gilbert, expounding on the creative profanity of DeathSpank's world. (He's trying to grow vegetables for the county fair and wants some demon dung for fertilizer, because he's pretty sure that's the key to winning this year's contest. He gives you his experimental '˜Demon Poop Hammer' to go hit demons with. It does only one point of damage, but has a ten percent chance of making them poop. It's harder than you think.)

Points of damage? Percentage chances? This doesn't sound like an adventure game. And it isn't DeathSpank's dialoguing is spliced with hack-and-slash dungeon crawling of a kind most readily comparable to Diablo. Vast inventories, piles of loot, elaborate weaponry, customisable armour, chicken attack squads it's a far cry from the ruminative pointing and clicking of Gilbert's games of yore, but no less gleefully silly.
I don't mind a little humor in my games, but this is on a whole new level. I'm not sure I can bring myself to spend a couple dozen hours with a game that doesn't take itself seriously in the slightest.