Editor's note: It's episode two of the BMGC: Sonny Edition, and I still haven't figured out if I want to play this Flash role-playing game series or not. Read on for unvarnished opinions and hot talk from Aaron Rivers, Chris Davidson, Travis McReynolds, and Lance Darnell. - Demian

Welcome to the Bitmob Game Club!

Bitmob Game Club is a community collaboration where the Club picks a (typically free) game, and a group of Bitmobbers play it. After playing a specific section of the game, the contributors write about it, Bitmob style (read: any way they want). We collect all of the stories for each section in one post, allowing the whole community to participate!

Want to join the game club? Shoot an e-mail to: jamesderosa[at]sophistgames[dot]com. Subject: Bitmob Game Club.

When it's time for a new edition, we'll select four people at random to participate. Be sure that you can commit the time and effort it takes before sending the e-mail; otherwise, you get the Darnell Boot-O-Doom!

Remember: Each contributor worked hard playing and writing about the game -- give them feedback!

In this episode of the Bitmob Game Club, the contributors play through Sonny and Sonny 2, a couple of Flash games created by developer Krin for Armor Games.

Want to follow along? Click here to play on Armor Games' website. Don't confuse it with the sequel, and make sure you register an Armor account in order to save your progress. (Don't worry, they don't spam your e-mail or anything.)

On with the stories!

Sonny Edition Contributor: Aaron Rivers

Aaron likes metal, but not in the way that elementary school kids like kickball or you like pizza. Aaron really likes metal. So much so that he decided to observe Rocktober 13^th as an actual holiday. When he tried to explain to his boss that this date is, in fact, a real religious holiday, and thus merits full company time-and-a-half wages for working during its course, she scoffed. Aaron is currently filing a complaint with corporate in regard to this religious discrimination.

He's playing Brütal Legend and the MAG beta.

As you might recall from the previous edition of Game Club, Sonny awoke with a very convenient case of amnesia. He fought his way across an uncommonly long boat with a blind dude named Louis, who was ultimately exploded (yes, Chris, it is a word, if an improperly used one). Before that explodification (not a word), Louis gave Sonny a cassette tape that he said would give him all of the answers, which, if you think about it, is a pretty open-ended statement.

What answers was he even talking about? Why am I a zombie for no particular plot reason other then to add to my already staggering amount of zombie-related fatigue? Why is everyone dead or, if not, why do they want to kill me? Why was there a tailpipe to a '57 Chevy conveniently left on the ground near me so I would have something to bludgeon people with?

Or what about the most important question: Why the hell did he put all the answers on cassette? Didn't he realize that everything is digital now? I'm just going to say “no,” and attribute this oversight to him being blind.

Anyway, on with Sonny.

Sonny

Zone 3 - Gadi'Kala: The Great Plains

After traversing a beach infected with assorted ghost samurai and ghost ninja(s) -- what's the plural there? -- Sonny and his new BFF, Veradux, decide to venture into the dreaded plains of Gadi'Kala.

After the haunted beach, this place looks like what would happen if Disney World and Megan Fox had a baby. I mean what could go wrong? They've got a fresh water supply, and if the smoke coming from their houses is any indicator, I suppose they have a somewhat prosperous community.

The first enemy informs me this is shaman country, which doesn't sound so bad. I mean, I just got done battling my way through Japanese apparitions intent on my demise. After that, shaman country sounds like a cake walk. What are they going to do? Sell their land for whiskey? Maybe they'll make me a dream catcher which will one day be ridiculed when someone sees it in the background of a strip tease video I make for Bitmob.

What's that you have there, Mr. Shaman? A Rock Golem? That doesn't seem too bad. It looks like a naked zombie with a stick. Not too threatening.

After his attack, I said something like this: “Oh my god! You broke my...everything!”

It was then that I remembered that, aside from the talent system, which is borrowed from World of Warcraft, Krin over at Armor Games also decided to borrow WoW's resistance system. Sure, before this section they had elemental zombies, but resistance gear was never as much of a necessity as it is with the Rock Golem.

This idea of compulsory resistance gear is refreshing when viewed as an addition to the JRPG genre that Sonny seems to be mimicking. Because of this fight, the player needs to hold another armor set in reserve to their primary damage set, in case they encounter these new resistance-specific enemies. That said, this is also a bit irksome in light of the fact that you don't know the details of your next encounter until it begins.

Also, I think it's necessary to address the fact that you do not have control of your battle partner, Veradux. Having opted for the Assassin class, I found that I was forced to rely on Veradux as my de facto healbot. Seeing as he was dressed for the job, I didn't think he would mind.

The program breaks down when Veradux decides, in his infinite AI wisdom, to do something completely moronic. I admit that this happens rarely, but when I get pummeled because of something he does or doesn't do that I can't control, I get irate.

Gripes aside, Sonny is a refreshing reimagining of an arguably stagnate genre. The blending of western MMO philosophies and JRPG combat systems works remarkably well. I also have to congratulate Krin for making every battle seem important and, at times, even downright epic.

Sonny 2

Zone One - New Alcatraz: The Iron Prison

The first thing I noticed was the leap forward in production quality of this game over its predecessor.

Beginning with the opening cinema -- in the first game these sections of exposition were often confusing, boring, and downright mockable. It seems that Krin has learned from previous mistakes and found a good voice. The dialogue, while still not terribly inspired, it is at least chuckle-worthy. The big difference here is that with the original Sonny I felt like I was laughing at the game, and, so far with Sonny 2, I have been laughing with it.

The class system is also significantly changed in the sequel. Before, I was forced to choose between relatively stereotypical archetypes such as Assassin or Defender. Sonny 2 has three new classes: Psychological, Biological, and Hydraulic. This change is not merely stylistic -- rather than one talent tree played however you like, the classes have three distinct trees, which lead to multiple, distinct combat-viable builds.

Having played Sonny as an Assassin, I decided to break away from this and choose the Psychological class. Oh, and its description, “If insanity were a weapon, then it would be this form,” may have cemented my choice.

Due to the attention paid to the core mechanics of what worked in the previous installment, I'm finding myself more willing to forgive the narrative fuck-ups of Sonny 2. I can also overlook starting over at level one (complete with '57 Chevy tailpipe and soiled white T-shirt) considering I now have the ability to moderate Veradux's combat strategy on a turn-by-turn basis.

Returning to where this article started, let's talk about the narrative motivation: Louis' cassette tape. When that blind dude named Louie decided to entrust the protagonist with the tape, he claimed that it would give all the answers. Before, I mused about what might be answered with such an archaic audio format. The answer came at the end of this section...and let me say, my head still hurts from this “revelation.”

More to come. Stay tuned.

Sonny Edition Contributor: Chris Davidson

Chris is currently trying to come up with an awesome costume for Halloween, but is destined to fail as always. He is still playing Kingdom Hearts for DS, but he's also snuggling with his copy of Uncharted 2. He respects Uncharted 2, and believes he needs to court it properly until the time is right for him to play it (his imaginary girlfriend is jealous).

As a raging alcoholic in one of the craziest places in America, I've fought ninjas, samurai, minotaurs, and the occasional girl (by accident), so Sonny's story is slowly growing on me, and I'm learning to empathize with him. I'm usually so drunk I don't know where I am or how I got there, and, just like me, Sonny continues to suffer from amnesia. And, just like Sonny, I have been forced to fight random people who are angry at me for unknown reasons.

I know none of you really want to hear about the time I fought a ninja; you are actually here to read about Sonny the zombie. So here it is:

When we last left off, neither Sonny nor the audience had any fucking idea as to what was happening with the story, and at the end of the first Sonny it becomes very clear that there actually wasn't one. (Which makes the confusion easier on all of us.)

As far as the story is concerned, well, there is no story. You can feel free to argue with me and lose some other time. Personally, I'm glad that I don't have to worry about it or talk about it ever again. If you know what's good for you, you won't either. (I mean it too, the last guy that didn't listen to me was the ninja in the first paragraph.)

Medic!

I eventually arrived at the last boss after a full ten hours of grinding (luckily, it only felt like nine and a half), and I realized fairly quickly that it would be way easier to re-spec my character into a heal-bot. What originally appeared to be the most difficult battle in the game turned out to be one of the easiest. Once I realized I just had to heal the paladin, he took care of beating the shit out of the Baron.

I was a bit nervous that I'd have to fight the paladin because the Baron dude we fought was about ten times stronger than me, and the paladin was crushing him for about 2000 points every hit. As luck would have it, somewhere between the battle with the Baron and this battle with me, he tripped on a rainbow and turned into a super pussy. I took him out pretty quickly.

On to the sequel!

They certainly increased the animation effects, but as mentioned before this doesn't increase the amount of story, because it is still impossible to multiply zero by something and get an actual quantity. The creator is slowly trying to incorporate more humor into the dialogue, but, unfortunately, it always sounds awkward. A new interface makes it feel a bit shinier though, and I do like shiny things.

The new classes are cool, too, and I'm playing a total healer this time around. This works for me a bit more; I can consistently plow through stages, although the fights do seem slightly more difficult and tend to take more planning.

Another new feature: the ability to set your partners' attack and defense priorities. Instead of your companions randomly lighting shit up with no distinguishable rhyme or reason, you can now generally choose what target they're going to fuck up. I don't completely understand why the developers don't let you control them directly, though, as this would make the game a lot more interesting.

I still wish you could move around, and some branching paths would be pretty sweet, but I still have yet to see any evolution in this department. I can't see myself going for any of the achievements unless I unexpectedly find myself having a lot fun by the end of the game. At the moment I just aim to finish.

Time to go do my own Sonny reenactment by getting so hammered that I don't know where I am and then fighting something random. (To show my enthusiasm for the game of course, and it's certainly not something I do every weekend and most Wednesdays.) Maybe I'll even bring a lead pipe this time for good luck.

Sonny Edition Contributor: Travis McReynolds

Travis McReynolds is ready for post season MLB to be over so he can start getting to sleep at a decent hour. He’d slap somebody in front of their momma for some biscuits and gravy right now.

Also, he’s still making his way through Uncharted 2 and Crono Trigger.

If I didn’t drive home the point in our last Sonny post, I love experience points. I don’t like gift certificates -- too impersonal -- but I’ll accept EXP on any occasion. So when I got to Zone 3, I engaged in training fights for a good couple of hours before revisiting the main story battles. By the time I was back on the hunt for the elusive tape deck, I was around level 20 and had maxed out most of the passive abilities available in the ability tree. I had become unstoppable, invincible.

Or so I thought....

The third chapter of our saga carries on the rich story-telling tradition of the first two: It’s batshit crazy. You’re a talking zombie teamed up with another talking zombie in search of a tape deck in order to learn about your past. You’ve killed a boatload of other zombies, a beach full of samurai ghosts, and now you’re working through vast plains inhabited by undead shaman things. I still have no clue as to why.

In an effort to justify time spent at the computer away from Minesweeper, my frazzled mind has put together a thin backstory for our heroes.

Sonny and Veradux are a couple of hardass cops hot on the trail of a killer or a drug dealer or maybe even a terrorist. The criminal element really isn't important, so pick whichever you like. I’m going with killer because I’m lazy. They've chased the killer to the Trail of Tears memorial and have gotten jumped by a bunch of vaguely Native American zombies. The killer got away, but they’ve discovered something more important than making the case: friendship. Sonny: The Movie, starring Hugh Grant and Sylvester Stallone.

In summary, the story is analogous to diarrhea; it’s loose, it doesn’t resemble any of its source material, and it stinks. Additionally, the game still presents no challenge as my Destroyer class avatar continues to use the Smash command to kill most enemies in one or two hits. At this point, I was prepared to call Sonny a loss and move on to the sequel. Then along came Baron Brixius. For this fight, my zombies were joined by a beastly paladin capable of inflicting way more damage than even my over-leveled Destroyer. I was cocky going into the boss fight, but Brixius corrected this neatly by packaging my ass for me.

I started to freak out and considered my first re-spec of the game. Sonny gives players the option of completely resetting all of their earned stats and abilities, allowing them to reassign their points from the bottom up. Before doing that however, I decided to try my hand at Brixius once time to determine exactly what I should focus on. The second time through, my pal Veradux did a better job of playing Johnny-on-the-spot-healer and my party defeated the Baron without losing a single member. So much for the re-spec option.

Still, Baron Brixius was a tough fight, and players needs to dedicate themselves to whatever character type they chose at the beginning of the game in order to defeat him. Things are starting to look up; Sonny is finally getting more challenging.

After a last boss battle fighting my previous ally, the paladin, I was shocked to find I’d beaten the game. It topped out at maybe two hours of gameplay, and the penultimate boss was the only enjoyable battle to be had.

The end.

Or is it? Sonny has an extended play option for those special nerds (me) that want to max out their ability tree. The special challenge bosses here are tougher, and are what I’d consider par for normal RPG standards. At least the first two, anyway.

The third, called Doctor Herregods, has a million hit points and can regenerate 200,000 without using any focus (magic). I may be a bored office worker with a lot of time on his hands, but with my best attack topping out at around 1500 points of damage, there is no fucking way I’m sitting and clicking the same beach ball icon the amount of times it’d take to kill this thing.

I’ve filled out change of address cards that are more fun than this “challenge.” I’d rather organize M&Ms under a blacklight than fight this guy. I’d rather work in real estate.

Sonny 2, Chapter Uno

Before we get started, I’d like to mention what a bullshit cop-out it is to have two games arranged chronologically in a series, but, in the second one, you start from scratch. Did Sonny just forget about the badass mega-dragon armor I bought him? And what about Smash? Nope.

Apparently Sonny has gone amnesiac again. He seems to have forgotten all of his abilities and misplaced all of his equipment. What a forgetful dick. Same deal with Veradux, too, but I never took him out of his ambulance armor anyway. I think it makes him look distinguished.

In Sonny 2, you start off having your plot device, er...tape, stolen by a lady-zombie on a motorcycle. To keep with the ongoing theme of absurdity, you chase her through the least likely locale possible -- a haunted prison that houses medical experiments. The graphics are slightly better, but the voice acting has taken a severe nosedive. The acting in this game is just awful. It seems everyone adjusted their Shatner level to 11 just prior to reading their lines off of smudged index cards.

Must...continue...playing...poorly...acted...game!

Resigned to my fate, I started building Sonny back up with training fights. In spite of (or perhaps because of) an adjustable difficulty that I’ve set to the middle level, I’m again able to walk all over everything with just a few commands. I’ve picked the equivalent of the Destroyer class, now known as the Biological class, and leveled up the passive focus regeneration ability so I can use it every other turn. It’s no Smash (I miss it so), but I’ll make due.

After catching up to the she-zombie and retrieving the tape, our heroes managed to track down a tape deck lodged in the dashboard of an old 1988 Chevy. Stretching my suspension of disbelief to its absolute breaking point, the truck still runs, and I was able to hear the tape. It plays “You are My Sunshine.”

Sonny and Veradux were perplexed by this revelation, and it seems as though they are finally just as confused by this duct-tape job of a story as the rest of us.

Sonny Edition Contributor: Lance Darnell

Lance is still trying to find balance since getting a new job. Playing Sonny has been a great learning experience for him, since it is the first time he has ever had to play a video game for anything other than enjoyment.

When not mumbling threats under his breath, he is playing -- and loving -- Fallout 3.

Sonny, Zone 3

I am very pleased to write that I made it to Zone 3 of Sonny. It was a hard fight, but once I got familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of the enemies I was facing, it went well. Until I faced the Baron.

The Baron represents everything that is wrong with Sonny, and, in a more macro way, everything that is wrong with the universe as a whole. The only way to beat the Baron -- and I am only guessing since I never did -- is to slowly wear him down. This seems to be the main design concept for defeating many of the harder enemies in Sonny. Besides falling into a fight pattern determined by the game itself, there is no real strategy. I found that the primary challenge was simply staying alive: something very difficult to do. Especially with that damn Baron!

Instead of going into a rant about how this game does not suit my tastes, or about how it utterly defeated me, leaving only a broken man, I will instead praise it for what it did do well: good music and voice-acting. The story is not very intriguing, but the convincing actors make it less painful, and the music is definitely the one saving grace of what is otherwise a grinding game to play.

Sonny 2, Zone 1

Sonny was not for me, but it's charm and decent gameplay did have me somewhat excited to try the sequel. At first, I felt lost when trying to keep up with the story since I had not finished the first game. Apparently, Sonny was locked in a jail or an institution of some type at the start of the second game. After breaking out, Sonny must fight his way through prisoners, guards, and eventually some weird doctors.

Taking what I learned from the first game and applying it to Sonny 2 allowed me to get through the first zone very quickly, and the training option is available from the start of the game, though I did not need it. Sonny 2 also gives you a lot more points to spend on powers right at the start of the game; halfway through the zone I had a six or seven powers, including a restore spell.

Soon, though, the drag that I felt while playing the first game started to set in again. It seemed like I was fighting every last person in the institution, and that the fights were not challenging at all compared to the first game. I beat the last boss, who I think was a doctor of some sort, with very little strategy.

Despite any misgivings I may have, I am enjoying Sonny 2 so far. The first game kicked my ass so bad that perhaps I should be happy that it's a bit easier.