My favorite special effect though, uses forced perspective and is actually very clever. In the movie, Cutesy Buttons flies a helicopter above Dangeresque’s car to rescue him. The scene is framed such that Strong Bad and the car are filmed from afar, while Coach Z holds a toy helicopter up close to the camera, making it look like the helicopter is hovering over the car. What’s great is that forced perspective is a classic special effect used in real film making. In fact, it was often used in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy to create the illusion of height differences between hobbits and humans.

What’s a movie these days without the special features on the DVD extended edition? The game’s Extended Play mode contains “outtakes”, “cast interviews”, “bloopers”, and “deleted scenes”, which are all extremely funny. However, I’m a bit disappointed with it because it’s the least polished section of the game. Not only are the subtitles littered with misspelled words, but some of the dialogue and comments from the regular game remain in Extended Play and no longer make sense. For example, on the Cutesy Buttons set, Strong Bad and Marzipan are supposed to be out of character, but when you click on some of the items around them, they respond as if they’re still in character. Similarly, everyone’s still labeled with their Dangeresque 3 character names when you hover the cursor over them.

In terms of gameplay, this is no different from the past three episodes. There are still puzzles abound, though they are a lot easier this time. Yes, the puzzles in the Strong Bad games have always been geared towards younger players, but I couldn’t help but feel that they were dumbed down even more than usual. I don’t know if it’s because the developers focused too much on story execution, but if so, it’s forgivable since it was a job well done. Similarly, I can also overlook the fact that there’s no sign of the Teen Girl Squad, but I still hope that they return for the fifth and final episode, 8-Bit is Enough.

Dangeresque 3: The Criminal Projective is hands down the best Strong Bad game in the series so far. It has a few blemishes, but they are overall inconsequential. It’s highly entertaining, fun, and finally fulfills Homestar Runner fans’ long-time wish for Strong Bad to complete the Dangeresque series. The best part is that, since none of the episodes are connected in any way, you can skip Baddest of the Bands and simply bask in the awesomeness that is Dangeresque 3. Or better yet, watch this , then this to fully appreciate the storyline.

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