Zbang! The Game Demo

Comic books usually target the younger audience, although there is a huge market for adults as well, featuring violence, politics and various other grown-up things. Zbang is a famous Israeli comic that follows the life a teenager by the name of Mike, who's at the age when girls and rock music are the two most important things in the world, while his parents cause him nothing but anguish and suffering.

Zbang! The Game is a point-and-click adventure title in which you get to witness for yourself Mike's struggle to keep an even balance between the things he enjoys, by simply dropping everything else in the favor of his girlfriend. However, due to the nature of the genre, most of your actual gameplay time is spent looking for clues and gathering objects, since the puzzles themselves are not very complicated at all and the hidden objects are not very well hidden either.

The story is usually explained through comic strips and very nice drawings, along with written dialog to give you an idea about what the characters say and feel. Mike's main goal is to have sex with his girlfriend Jennifer, but every time he seems to get close and seal the deal, something unexpected happens and everything goes terribly wrong. Whether it's thanks to his friends, back luck or just a mixture of the two, it is quite clear that Mike seems doomed to fail in his task.

As previously mentioned, the game itself is very easy to play and understand, since all you have to do is click around the environment until you stumble into the things you are looking for. In case you think that logic might speed up the process, then you will probably have a big surprise, since nothing in the life of a teenager makes too much sense. On the other hand, the absurdity and the humor are the centerpiece of the game and you can't help but crack a smile whenever logic fails to make an appearance.

Graphically, the game is basically entirely hand-drawn, which includes the environments and the characters themselves. The animations are slightly disappointing on the other hand, since they hurt the otherwise spotless visual representation of the comic book universe. Everything goes back to normal during the cutscenes, however, mostly because the art style is exquisite and definitely not lacking in detail.

Zbang! The Game may not have hit the jackpot when it comes to gameplay, but it certainly can cause a lot of laughter and brighten your mood considerably whenever you give it a few minutes of your time. The facile puzzles and the casual nature of the experience have a great impact on the game as well, but only if you consider yourself a hardcore fan of the genre.