Penny Arcade pushed over second Precipice

Penny Arcade creators Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik have gained a reputation over the years as two of the more vociferous and cutting game critics, thanks to their widely read webcomic. So it was with no undue giddiness that many within the industry greeted Episode One of the duo's Hothead Games collaboration Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, a game that many critics came to regard as not half bad.

Today, Hothead announced that the final lines of code have been compiled on the second installment in the episodic adventure-game series, and it's now being prepped for release as a digital download over Xbox Live, Windows, Mac, and Linux for release later this fall. With Episode One slated to hit the PlayStation Network in late fall, the second installment will arrive for Sony's console shortly after it appears on other platforms.

In a postmortem interview with GameSpot, Krahulik discussed areas in which Hothead and Penny Arcade hope to improve on the original. "We did not have enough classic adventure-type puzzles or puzzles in general in the game. And I think the minigames we put in there on the boardwalk fell flat. They didn't end up as cool as we hoped they'd be. For the next episode we definitely bump up the puzzles, and I think the minigame element will be better there, too."

Of note, whereas the first episode clocked in at $20, Episode Two's pricing has been hedged to $14.95. For more on PAA: Episode Two, check out GameSpot's most recent preview.