Grubbins On Ice (Costume Quest DLC) Review

     I was planning on downloading Grubbins On Ice and playing it during a snowstorm since it is set partially in a snowy environment. The snowstorm beat me to it though, as it wasn't on the hard drive before the storm hit! Luckily I was able to get out a day or so later and grab it, so I still got to play it with snow on the ground. Things that take place in snow are really fun to experience if there is actually snow outside. I read Mouseguard Winter 1152 with snow on the ground and watched The Thing under snowy circumstances, and they were both the more enjoyable for it. Appropriately, on the day I'm publishing this, the roads are covered in ice. I even got stuck in a valley in the road filled with ice. Makes me wish there was slippery ice in the game...

     Grubbins On Ice is a DLC pack for Costume Quest. It is an additional area with its own story that is basically a sequel to the game. It is 1/3 the length of the original game. It took me about 2.5 hours to beat. Please read my review ofCostume Quest for more detail on how it plays, as it's basically identical.

    It's got more of everything. 3 new costumes, 8 new battle stamps, and 18 new Creepy Treats cards (once again, a highlight for me, they are so cool!). The new area is the world of the monsters. There is a new race of monsters with several classes to fight. Lucy gets kidnapped and you have to save her. You play as Wren, Reynold, and Everett, who hook up with an underground monster rebellion (complete with Che Guevara style beards and berets).

   Once again, the writing is really witty and well done, with great nods and references and generally funny stuff. Once again, though, the battle system and basic gameplay is slightly boring after awhile. Because the mechanics started to get boring toward the end of the main game, I really think there should have been a few twists thrown into this DLC's main gameplay of trick-or-treating and fighting battles. I especially felt it when I had to fight several identical battles in a row. Getting experience isn't an issue, so I was thinking, “Does the game think the outcome of this battle will be different this time?”

   In general, the graphics seem to have a little more polish than the main game, although I ran into a few frame-rate problems. The river and water-fall of green goo that runs through the whole area is especially beautiful and impressive, as are the handful of cutscenes that seem to have a little more camera action than we got in the main game.

     Despite the lack of innovation, seeing the new costumes, new areas, new attacks, and new collectibles, as well as enjoying some more witty dialogue and visual gags, all make the game fun to run through. It just would have been a lot better with a few twists on the gameplay to make that more interesting as well. I'm going to give say it's a mediocre game, tier 1. The writing and visual design are of course somewhere up in the great game tiers, but the gameplay isn't.