I was ready to rock, and so was Strong Bad in Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 3: Baddest of the Bands. The game is the third in a group of titles set in the world of Strong Bad, which is inhabited by slew a of oddball characters. The game of rock, roll and a few three-hour key-tair solos starts in Strong Bad’s room. You, the player, join Strong Bad as he plays the game Limozeen Hot Babelian Odyssey in which the band Limozeen, with its trusty van-shaped spaceship, must save the Hot Babelians from the evil, well, everything else on the screen except the buildings really.

Controls are explained on the first screen of the minigame. Pretty simple. At your disposal is movement, a laser to shoot down enemies, a tractor beam to grab the Hot Babelians and bombs that destroy all enemies on the screen. With these tools, Strong Bad and I set out on an epic quest of wondrous proportions — for about five minutes.

As time passed, the low-graphic old-school style game of Hot Babelians began to blink and blip. Something was amiss, and quickly Strong Bad’s TV screen went black. This did not sit well with the namesake of Strong Badia. Needless to say, gameplay in Hot Babelians ceased, and it shifted to the familiar style of the previous two games. These controls were moving Strong Bad using the mouse, using items and dialogue to solve puzzles, and a load of craziness in between.

Since the Fun Machine is kaput, Strong Bad heads to Bubs’ Concession Stand in hopes of getting it repaired. Given the complexity of the Fun Machine and its technological advancement, Bubs requires a large sack of cash from Strong Bad. Unfortunately, Strong Bad doesn’t have any sacks of cash, large or otherwise, so he, and myself by extension, set out to find a way to score a large sack of cash to pay for Fun Machine repairs.

Luckily, through exploring the regions of the world, Strong Bad discovered that there was a vast amount of bands (about three) around the region. So, of course Strong Bad’s solution for gaining a large sack of cash for the Fun Machine was to create a battle of the bands with a required entry fee.

By winning his own contest, Strong Bad would be able to pay for the Fun Machine fees and pay off Bubs for organizing the contest. I’m sure it can be a pain when one guy pretty much sells any services that any of the residents of Strong Badia need. But then, Bubs sure is a good salesman with pitches like “Hey! Buy somethin’!”

With the task of recruiting bands among other various things, I went about my way through Baddest of the Bands. I’ve played the previous two episodes, and they were enjoyable, funny and fun, but this one I played through in one sitting.

I’ve played the previous games, which compared to someone new to the games, I (probably) got through parts of it quicker, but the puzzles and jokes were entertaining and challenging enough that I didn’t grow bored at all. I kept wanting to get to the next part of the story or the next puzzle.

The game sucked me into the world with its, at times, corny or hilarious jokes and with its “maybe this will work in this situation” mentality. Armed with my inventory of weird items, I experimented and explored the world in hopes of furthering the story and increasing my level of awesomeness.

Yep, there’s also a level of how awesome you are in this episode. Personally, I love this sort of rating system. Even if I have none of the tasks for increasing awesomeness completed, or I haven’t found any of the secrets, the lowest rating still makes me chuckle when I read it.

By the end of the game, my awesomeness rating was “Nordic Percussion Lord.” Pretty awesome I’d say; not completely awesome as there were things I hadn’t found or done yet, but I’m happy with my performance. In regards to increasing awesomeness, you collect different items throughout the world, perform certain actions to or for characters, or you cause certain things to happen.

With the number of choices that Baddest of the Bands offers for players, I’m glad to see exploration is rewarded. When trying to use bleach on things like a cardboard box or a computer, I’d hear a goofy line like, “That’s a really, really, really good idea. But ... this laundry bleach would probably work better in laundry-type situations.”

The lines were what kept me laughing. During the actual battle of the bands, responses to performances between characters were funny. For example, Strong Bad asks one character why they aren’t at their own performance and is given the reason that the character’s bandmate is in the middle of a three-hour key-tair solo. The parody of rock bands, usually exemplified with the band Limozeen, is always a hoot with Strong Bad, and the game does it just as well as the Web cartoons.

With a rocking awesome rating of “Nordic Percussion Lord” and a very enjoyable and continuous play experience, I’d have to say I highly recommend Strong Bad’s Cool Game For Attractive People Episode 3: Baddest of the Bands. If you haven’t played the previous two, go for it; jokes from those games are referenced in the third, but it’s not at all a must. If you’re not familiar with Strong Bad, well that’s fine; the jokes will still most likely cause you to grin or chuckle. You’ll enjoy exploring the world, solving the puzzles and trying to figure out just how a broomstick-shaped character with no arms plays a guitar. I’ve no idea. I just know the game was great and goofy.