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Da New Guys are a trio of professional wrestlers named Brains, Simon and Defender.  This fighting trio perform their trade regularly at the Wrestle Zone.  Sharing the same apartment, the mismatched group are the central characters of a new comedy game created by Chris Burton for Icebox Studio (I’m tempted to say the developers of cool games) and published by Wadjet Eye, a company that continues its love affair with retro style adventure games with a strong element of humour.  Da New Guys, subtitled Day of the Jackass, certainly fits in this genre.

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The game starts as Brains, who is not averse to using unorthodox methods to get his way and has a high regard for his own importance, manages to win the title belt by rendering all the other contestants unconscious using whatever items come to hand.  However Brains’ methods are not appreciated by everyone and he is quickly kidnapped.  The only clue left behind is part of a season ticket for the Wrestle Zone.  Fortunately for Brains, his flatmates, led by Defender who never seems to shed his fighting costume and was even unable to remove his mask when asked by the delightful Clarice, set out to rescue him.

Occupying the full screen area, this is a point-and-click adventure game featuring cartoon style characters who deliver their dialogue in both printed and vocal format.  Some of the voices assigned to characters do sound rather similar in both pitch and delivery style which can cause a little confusion.  Your mouse cursor is your sole means of interacting with the various characters and other items.  Clicking on a character will instigate a conversation with icons appearing at the bottom of the screen representing the choice of topics that are available.  A mouse click can be used to cut short any piece of dialogue.  To end a conversation you need to select the Exit icon which appears alongside the topic icons.

Concealed at the bottom of the screen is an inventory.  This will hold all the items you collect as you move between scenes.  The inventory remains concealed until the mouse cursor invades that area to reveal its content.  In some cases, items in the inventory can be combined to product the tool you need to complete a task.  Items from the inventory need to be dragged onto whatever item or character is the designated target.

In a similar way to the inventory, a game tool bar is concealed at the top of the screen.  Using this tool bar you can adjust various options that include turning on/off subtitles, tutorial and voices, save and load a game position plus quit the game.  There is a limit of four saved game slots identified by a date/time code and a thumbnail of the relevant image of the scene.  You will need to use the load option when starting the game from a specific position otherwise the game will default to the opening scene and position.

From time to time the game will switch to a top-down view of the current scene.  This will happen when you need to move around while avoiding guards and laser beams.  You will also need to pass control between Simon and Brains in order to carry out various tasks.

Spread over numerous locations, the game does provide you with an easy means of moving around.  Whenever you enter the street area, you are shown a map of the surrounding area with any available locations highlighted.  You just need to click on the location you want and you will be instantly transported to that place.

Throughout the game there are 12 awards on offer.  Bearing titles such as Ultimate Humiliation, Da New Girl, Bully and Stress Relief, these awards will be automatically presented to you whenever you complete the necessary conditions.  The full list of awards can be accessed from the game’s opening menu and those that you receive will open up the relevant concept art images which are also available from the main menu.

Along with the cartoon style images, the games humour is of the comic book variety.  There is some wit but more of the type that will make you grin rather than burst out laughing.  While the animation was generally good, there were a couple of occasions when characters almost appeared to walk through each other as they moved around a scene.

Currently the game will be available either as a limited edition CD or as a download.  The CD version is priced at $19.99 while the download will cost $9.99 for this Windows game.

http://www.wadjeteyegames.com/da-new-guys.html