Cherry Poke Prison

Cherry Poke Prison is a spin-off of the popular Trailer Park King games, which are popular because they have digital boobs.  And no, for you guys coming here from Google, there is no nudity or sex acts in this game.  Sorry, you’re going to have to settle for one of the three trillion, two-hundred and forty-eight billion, six-hundred and thirty-three million, two-hundred and four thousand, five-hundred and one other options you have out there.  Yea I know, life is cruel.  You know what else is cruel?  This is the only point and click series on XBLIG I actually give half a squirt about, and developer Sean Doherty dropped the ball here like it was lubricated in Crisco.

In Cherry Poke Prison, you play as Clyde, the cousin (hopefully just cousin and not also brother or something) of King.  He gets sent to a women’s prison because he’s a womanizer and um, yea.  Have I mentioned the stories in these games are the most outlandish, incomprehensible, brain-rotting, yet somehow charming pieces of shit ever?  I hate saying anything is “so bad that it’s good” but that really does apply to the Trailer Park King series.  As one-dimensional, crude, and quite frankly stupid as the writing in these games are, they’re kind of endearing.  I like the characters.  I think this would make a great webcomic.  As a game, it’s not as good.  It’s just typical point-and-click crap.  Only the logic has to be insane enough to match the writing, which leads to things like needing to stick tweezers in an electrical outlet, which causes the TV to turn on and not kill you.  Thus the game devolves into rubbing object A against object B and hoping it works, practical reasoning be damned.  I wish someone would make a  clicker where the logic is actually logical.  Actually, no I don’t.  I just thought about it and it still doesn’t sound fun.

But, I’m willing to slog through something that barely qualifies as a game if I’m entertained by the plot.  Like the previous two games, I admit that I was satisfied with Cherry Poke Prison.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s bad.  Oooh, yes, very bad.  I have to wash my ears out with bleach just for listening to it.  But, I wanted to see what happens next.  So I pressed on for a half-hour or so, and then I got a sliding puzzle.

What?

Actually, “Why?” is a better question.  I don’t get why game developers insist on including boring elements into their games.  Sliding puzzles are boring when they’re corporeal objects made from cheap plastic.  In video games, they’re fucking busywork and nothing more.  They’re certainly not fun.  Of the endless options the developer had to choose from, why did he pick this?  I love puzzles, but I hate THIS kind of puzzle.  It really has no place in a video game.

Otherwise, it’s pretty much the same stuff.  The absurd banter between the characters still provides a few smirks, with maybe a small “muuhuh” type of laugh for the ending gag.  I wasn’t a big fan of Clyde, mostly because his personality isn’t really distinctive from King.  It might as well have just been him.  I was half-expecting a weird “it really IS King” twist at the end, but that didn’t happen either.  So the main character wasn’t really needed all that much, and I won’t be sad if he is absent from the rest of the series.

I’m not going to take the easy way out and say that Cherry Poke Prison isn’t really any better or worse than the previous games.  The truth is, it is worse, because the chosen “minigames” are not as strong.  Both the slide puzzle and the weight lifting crap feel like chores, and they don’t fit in with the overall theme or tone of the game.  It’s not terrible or anything, but it’s not really good.  Not that it matters what I think.  I’m guessing most people who read this review got, ahem, stuck, after the first picture.  Hey guys, there’s more review down here.  Guys?  GUYS?

YO!  Over here!

Okay, now that I have your attention.

Cherry Poke Prison was developed by Freelance Games

80 Microsoft Points said “hasn’t anyone ever told you guys that doing that so much makes you go blind?” in the making of this review.