Name: Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 5: 8-Bit is Enough
Genre: Point-and-Click Adventure
Platform: Nintendo Wii, PC (Reviewed on Wii)

It feels like just yesterday that Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 4: Dangeresque 3 was released, reestablishing Telltale’s mastery of their craft. It was just plain fun, and without the issues that plagued the past episodes. Faith restored, my hopes were high for Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 5: 8-Bit is Enough, especially when it was announced that the episode would pay homage to the gaming industry. After playing through, it’s obvious that Telltale has been able to find the faults in the previous episodes and fixed them, because 8-Bit is Enough might be the best in the series.

Beginning immediately after the events of Dangeresque 3, 8-Bit is Enough follows Strong Bad’s attempts to undo the destruction done by Trogdor, the dragon he mistakenly let out of his Arcade Machine. First attempts prove unsuccessful after a large radioactive explosion rips the world asunder, merging it with the world of Video Games. Characters are transformed into digital versions of themselves, and Strong Bad has to travel between different worlds, making strange allies to slay the dragon.

The episode’s comedy is spot on, finding plenty of hilarity in some of the more embarrassing aspects of the gaming industry, mainly stemming from the early days of console and PC gaming. One particularly section has Strong Bad needing to solve a riddle on the inside of a code-wheel, poking fun at the earliest days of copy protection and DRM, while others have him trying to get a mod chip installed so he can travel into an imported game. Puzzles have fun with different aspects of retro games, like the graphics of early titles, joking about how hard it was to tell the difference between two items when they were both constructed of a few pixels. They comedy ties directly into the gameplay and creates plenty of hilarious, and rewarding opportunities. 

As a season closer, 8-Bit is enough is all that you could want from a Strong Bad game. Filled with references to earlier episodes, better and more polished gameplay, and as epic of a story as could be expected. Though it doesn’t tease another season at the end, the episodic adventures based on the Homestar Runner cartoons won my heart by the end, and while it’s definitely time for a break (and time Sam & Max to return), I’m anxiously anticipating Season 2, if I’m still attractive enough.

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Review: Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 4: Dangeresque 3 – WiiWare

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Review: Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 2: Strong Badia the Free – WiiWare