Editor's note: In the penultimate Sonny edition of Bitmob Game Club, Aaron Rivers, Chris Davidson, and Travis McReynolds continue to wrestle with Sonny 2, a zombie-soap-opera/RPG with a heart of (presumably) gold, or something. I can't quite tell if they like it or not. I think they do, but secretly. -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!

In this episode of Game Club, the contributors play through Sonny and Sonny 2, a couple of Flash games created by developer Krin for Armor Games. Also check out previous episodes one and two.

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!

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!

Sonny Edition Contributor: Aaron Rivers

As a resident of Philadelphia, Aaron is preparing for the imminent riot to occur when the Phillies win the Superbowl or the Nobel Prize or whatever. The victory itself is unimportant. What is important is the free television he plans on liberating. He will take any excuse to hit something with a brick.

Aaron is currently playing Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Trash Panic.

Sonny 2

Zone 2 -- Oberursel: The Frozen Village

After escaping through the prison filled with bizarre scientific experiments, our dynamic duo stole a pickup truck and rode off into the sunset listening to You Are My Sunshine. It's times like these when I wonder if this game's story was written under the influence of a combination of psychotropics, moonshine, and pop rocks, while watching a Discovery channel program about the mating habits of the walrus.

The small, incomprehensibly named town of Oberursel is infested with zombie-hating cultists. Mindlessly devout, these cultists look and act more like Sonny's version of the Spanish Inquisition. As far as enemies go this is not a bad plot route. Investigating themes of xenophobia could make for a very interesting and obvious parallel to race issues present in our own non-zombie infested world.

Hold on just one damn second!

This game makes barely enough sense anyway; maybe I should just do what Travis did and make up my own story involving hard-boiled cops, drug dealers, and terrorists. Wait, Sonny 2 already involves terrorists.

Zone 2 introduces you to Roald, the terrorist. Terrorist Roald was in the sleepy town of Zone 2 trying to undermine its cultist threat and, simultaneously, searching for a cure to the zombie epidemic. Roald is also from Utopia. When Sonny hears about this, he recruits Roald to be his guide in exchange for helping with the cultist problem.

After slaughtering a dozen or so cultists, and engaging in some lame action-hero dialogue, the team faces the leader of the cult, the Baron Brixus. For those of you who have been following along, he was the boss of the last zone in the previous game. This time around, the Baron has decided to use a different strategy.

The Baron still has an extraordinary amount of health, but this time, when his mana bar runs out, he sacrifices a bunch of health in order to refill it. After mindlessly murdering his sycophants previously, this idea is pretty refreshing -- too bad the Psychological class I chose doesn't have any effective abilities that attack an enemy's mana.

What the Phycological class does have, if spec'ed appropriately, is the ability to change into one of two new forms. These forms allow for such as upped damage output, health and mana regeneration, and changing Sonny's character model into something that looks like The Guyver with Wolverine's claws. I don't really understand why my “wraith form” would look like this, but whatever. It makes my lightening shoot harder.

Thankfully, the Baron is not as hard as he was previously. This is because he randomly decides to cast a buff on himself which, apparently, only causes him to take more damage. The Baron seems to have respec'ed to a Masochist/Idiot hybrid specialization and for that, I tip my hat to him.

Zone 3 -- Ivory Line: The Train

Having liberated Oberursel, the team boards a train that should take them to the fabled Utopia. In true Sonny style, you have to battle across this train of the damned.

Why? For absolutely no fucking reason.

I am pretty convinced that this zone exists only as a means to lengthen the game, while at the same time showing that Utopia is pretty far away. Nothing happens on the train. You fight some specters and other paranormal stuff that only further convinces me that this planet has a serious ghost problem.

What really boggles my mind is that you fight a hobo, twice. Much like the rockstar zombie from the first game, this hobo and his cousin, the subsequent “Real Hobo,” are only in the game as some kind of comic relief. In my opinion, this is not really necessary, since the nonsensical plot contains enough hilarity for the whole game.

My head is beyond the point of pain trying to understand this game. I think my brain might be slowly leaking out of my ears. Stay tuned to see if this turns into an actual medical condition.

Sonny Edition Contributor: Chris Davidson

Alright, Sonny, you finally got better. I'll be the first to admit my skepticism in the beginning, but Zones 2 and 3 have finally shed some new light on the game for me.

Up to this point, it's been Sonny and Veradux palling it up and generally underachieving. Finally, with the addition of a third character, everything feels right. The turn-based system always seemed a bit weak, and it wasn't until now that I realize it was because Sonny really needs three characters to make it interesting.

As mentioned in the last segment, you have a little bit more control over the characters, although I'm still upset that I don't have full control. I'm not going to lie, I'm a complete control freak who gets angry when I don't have my way; usually, I take it out on innocent people or animals. When they added the I-guess-I'll-generally-perform-these-kinds-of-actions-if-I'm-in-the-mood tab to help control Sonny's companions, my roommate's puppy began receiving significantly less beatings.

Unfortunately, I still can't choose their talents, distribute their points, or tell them directly what to do, and, because of that, my roommate's Jack Russell terrier is going to continue get the shit kicked out of it until I beat the game and finally calm down (I'm totally kidding by the way...kind of).

Sonny's new partner, whose name I've already forgotten, is also a little bit more interesting than Veradux, and sort of offers a plot to the beaten and smelly corpse that is the game's narrative. This whole Utopia thing, combined with the ZPCI being the good guys, all adds up to something fishy to me, and now I'm just under the curiosity level requisite to actually caring -- that's still leaps and bounds above where I was last week.

The battles are also getting a bit more interesting; a few in particular stand out pretty clearly. That said, I was forced back into heal-bot mode again, much like I was at the end of the first Sonny. I was hoping to beast my way through everything brute force style, but I always seem to have to resort to being a support class to make things go smoothly.

If the game can keep up this pace, I think I'll have something even more positive to say next week. On the other hand, if the game gets worse after getting my hopes up, so help me god. The rant I will rain down on this game will be epic.

Look forward to one or the other.

Sonny Edition Contributor: Travis McReynolds

Travis McReynolds recently received his Mario hat from Club Nintendo. He placed it on the head of Master Chief in his cubicle in an effort to cement his position in the office as “that guy.”

He’s finished Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, but is still working on Chrono Trigger because he learned his lesson about playing DS in the bathtub. [Note from James: This is upsetting and confusing to me.]

When we last left our heroes on the side of the road, they had just discovered that their only motivation to continue their quest was bullshit. Rather than give up and head back to the sweet samurai beach, Sonny and Veradux inexplicably continue on to a quiet mountain village. There they recruit a third party member from the local militia called Roald, encounter and defeat Baron Brixius once again, and eventually escape aboard a derelict train. See you next week!

Alright, I’ve come this far; I won’t cop out now. The story of Sonny continues to be a bad zombie soap opera, but it appears that the person responsible has caught on and is now at least in on the joke. The dialogue and situations in these two chapters are a little more tongue-in-cheek than in previous parts of the adventure, which has really helped to keep me interested. For example, on the train stage you fight a hobo and, after defeating him, can equip his beard. This seems a little Silence of the Lambs to me, but whatever.

On the negative side, the voice acting continues to get progressively worse. Roald, your new buddy, a resistance fighter, has about the worst Irish accent I’ve ever heard. He sounds like a British guy doing an impression of a Japanese guy imitating an Irish accent. I don’t know if you’ve seen the show FlashForward yet, but it kind of sounds like Joseph Fiennes’ American accent -- forced and vaguely Canadian.

Anyway, the gameplay continues to be simple and provides little challenge to my zombie brawler. While other Game Clubbers caught this, one improvement that I neglected to mention last time is the ability to pick the type of move your AI companions will use on a turn-by-turn basis. This is a great addition, but I still don’t quite get what the hang-up is about allowing the player to control the party completely. I suppose this would make the game even easier.

The rematch with Baron Brixius is pretty anti-climactic. In the first Sonny, the Baron was essentially the final boss (though he didn't come last); he was the only real challenge the first game gave me. In Sonny 2, the Baron has lost a lot of his power and I was able to walk right over him on my first attempt. This is a negative point in terms of the game's difficulty curve, but a positive in terms of realistic aging. Obviously an older version of Baron Brixius would not be able to defend himself as well as his younger, more robust counterpart. Unless, of course, he's been hitting the Boniva pretty hard.

I know Lance has had some trouble getting through a couple of the bosses, and for me the one shining point in the series thus far has been the grind-fest aspect. The ability tree allows for several different plans of attack based on your play style, and as long as you’re able to devote a couple hours to clicking multi-colored beach balls, you can always build up your stats enough to overpower any enemy in the game. Some players might not be into level grinding, and I’d advise those people to try something other than Sonny 2.

The train ride that comprises chapter three makes as much sense as its predecessors -- complete with some random old guy who has probably been sitting around for ten years on a moving train, waiting for you to come around and buy some greaves. Someone should tell him you don’t have to do shit like that to pass time anymore. That's why Hulu exists. Also, what kind of hobo hangs out on a train with a bunch of ghosts? It’s not like you’ve put down roots or anything, dude; just grab your trash bag full of cans and settle down in a less haunted area. Haven't you got something better to do?

At the end of your ride, you defeat a pretty forgettable two-form boss and crash the whole stage into a toxic tunnel. I’m saving that chapter for next week, but I do think it bears mentioning that you can get back on the wrecked train and keep riding it from the world menu. It appears as much time and effort was dedicated to the game's continuity as its acting.