Game: The Lost Hobo King: Stacking DLC

Platform: XBLA, PSN

Publisher:THQ

Developer: Double Fine

ESRB: T

Genre: Adventure

Players: 1

What's Hot: The tightest Stacking stage yet, hilarious hobo setting, clever puzzles

What's Not: Gross-out humor is a bit much

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Review by: Danielle Riendeau

The Lost Hobo King is the tightest, fastest-paced chapter of Double Fine’s ultra quirky adventure. With three main puzzles and the most hilarious cutesy/disgusting setting yet, it’s a must for anyone who has played and enjoyed the main adventure.

Once again, you’ll play as little Charlie Blackmore, the teeniest Russian Matryoska stacking doll in a world populated by wooden people and theatrical-looking props (all the world’s a stage in Stacking). This time around, instead of saving your siblings from a life of hard labor, you’re helping our your faithful buddy Levi by seeking out the legend of the “Lost Hobo King” in an unassuming hobo fishing village. Each of the three central puzzles unleashes a special hobo character, necessary to re-forge a mystical crown from long ago.

You certainly don’t need to pay any attention to the story to enjoy the wacky atmosphere, though it helps if you’re into witty, inane dialogue and a charming, slightly gross aesthetic. Much of the fun here is in talking to each character, reveling in the bizarre dialogue and slowly making sense of the puzzles. As with the game proper, each of the many dolls populating the area has one unique ability, and you will “stack” into them to gain their powers. It’s all a matter of finding the right doll for the job on each task, and chaining your correct answers together into solutions. It’s a brilliant conceit and a revolutionary take on the point-and-click adventure genre, and it’s so accessible that a non-gamer can grok it inside of five minutes.

New to Hobo King is a selection of “wise men” dolls that have the ability to read runes scattered throughout the stage. These are visual clues that light up whenever you shake your tin can magic stick at them, providing a little extra signposting for solutions and unique features. One section has a rune that encourages you to fish on a pier, revealing a secret character. Another provides clues for solving the central six-solution puzzle that requires you to avoid a bunch of zombie dolls across three underground rooms. It’s a nice touch, and allows for less strain on the built-in hint system.

The village setting is more compact than the previous train, station, cruise ship and zeppelin locales, making for a tighter adventure. Unlike in any other scenario in the main game, I actually wanted to stick around and find all of the solutions to each challenge before moving on. The scope feels “just right”, and you won’t be trolling a massive stage for the right doll at any point.

In fact, the one and only potential complaint is a serious upping of the gross-out factor. There’s always been some burping and farting and barfing in Stacking, but Hobo King takes things a little further down the toilet humor glory hole. The village is hilariously dirty, with giant cans of beans and run-down huts providing most of the architecture, and you’ll make use of such delicate items as rancid meat and partially digested fish in solving the puzzles. Since I have the sense of humor of a ten-year-old boy, I love this stuff. I giggled maniacally at one particularly hilarious exchange about a character’s gas being a “sign”, but your mileage may vary a bit.

Stacking is still one of the weirdest and most wonderful adventures on the downloadable market, and Hobo King offers delights that are stranger and funnier still. It’s a must-buy, unless you’re too squeamish to deal with stinky cheese and “already been chewed” fish.

Danielle Riendeau is a regular contributor to GameShark and is the cohost of Jumping the Shark , GameShark.com's official podcast and is co-founder of the gaming blog No High Scores. She's also a serious workout warrior.

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