All right, maggots, listen up! Do you has... er, have what it takes to join the Homestarmy and bring some orange slices for Homestar, and give him the five bucks if it comes to that? Strong Bad certainly hopes so. This month's installment of Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, Strong Badia the Free, sees Strong Bad attempting to overthrow the King of Town after His Royal Roundness decrees an email tax. As anyone who follows the masked one's shenanigans already knows, this would pose quite a problem for Strong Bad, but makes for an excellent adventure title from Telltale Games.

Strong Badia the Free opens with Strong Bad being placed under house arrest by the King of Town for failing to comply with His Majesty's email tax. Once you figure out how to free Strong Bad from his wrongful imprisonment, your goal becomes to unite the rest of Free Country, U.S.A., in order to overthrow the king. Unfortunately, after he declares Strong Badia a free nation, the rest of Free Country decides that Strong Bad's secession is a good idea, and so each individual character instantiates their own country: The Cheat and Tireia, Concessionstantinople, Bleak House, and Marzistar just to name a few.


Unlike the malleable map featured in Episode 1: Homestar Ruiner, Strong Badia the Free's map is static due to its layout being instrumental to gameplay. At the top of the map is Strong Badia, the King of Town's castle sits at the bottom, and all the other countries lay in between. In order to reach the castle, Strong Bad must first conquer all other nations through military force, bribery, and a combination of the two.

Like most adventure games, Strong Bad's first outing had a few instances that left users utterly stumped as to what should be done to proceed. Most of these situations could be solved by attempting seemingly arbitrary solutions that required the user to adopt the Homestar Runner world's wacky line of thought. While some similar scenarios do exist in Strong Badia the Free, this episode relies primarily on logical thought to progress from one puzzle to the next. This, combined with the episode's more enticing plot, makes Episode 2 a much more enjoyable adventure than the first, which was also entertaining.


Because Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People is episodic, one could correctly assume that some gameplay will recur from episode to episode. Instead of quickly and sloppily porting all of Homestar Ruiner's mechanics, those deemed appropriate for the second episode were revamped, and those that weren't were dropped. Using the metal detector to find hidden objects (most of which still aren't metallic in any way, shape or form) is a necessity in Strong Badia the Free, and has been made easier to use for its return. The shovel and detector are now one item, so all that is required to hunt for hidden treasure is to open the inventory, click on the detector, and search an area until Strong Bad finds something, at which point he'll automatically dig it up.