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This review is for the entire story with the first three chapters available for download here at www.drivethrurpg.com and ALL TEN episodes available at author Robert J. Defendi's website, PlayTesting.net (http://playtesting.net/?cat=3). After all, completionists (myself included) will naturally be compelled to download all ten episodes of this podcast novel in order to know the entire story as it unfolds.
I know this story is labeled as a comedy of sorts, and believe me when I say that I did indeed get the premise of Death by Cliché, but even with that in mind and after having I’d downloaded and listened to all ten of this podcast novel’s episodes, which range in duration from 29:12 (Episode 2) to 1:18:03 (Episode 1, I still have to say that I wasn't all that crazy about it. The story had a pretty original premise in the beginning, I'll admit (a game designer who gets shot by a deranged fan a la the Beetles’ very own John Lennon, only to be transported to the crazed fan's tabletop RPG campaign in an “afterlife” of sorts), but it got a little cheesy for me at times. The near-end of Episode 9, for example, the chief protagonist, Damico, starts bickering with two of his party members and the chief antagonist on how to set up the dramatic scene where the Evil Overlord himself threatens to destroy the world right before the final battle ensues. Granted, I know the story is all about a game designer trapped inside an RPG dimension where the lines blur between the world he’s now living in and the real world gaming sessions that are supposedly controlling it, but for me, this cheesiness often got a little too much for me, and I would’ve preferred it if Mr. Defendi would’ve toned it down in certain places. Additionally, there were scenes that Defendi had written into the story (e.g., a random 20th-century housewife who greets the husband who she apparently hates with venomous henpecking) that more or less drew my attention away from the primary narrative itself and, to my ears, didn’t add all that much to the adventure at hand, if anything at all. However, if there was one solitary thing about Death by Cliché that didn’t sit well with me at all, it was the fact that Defendi did all the voice acting by himself, which made it hard for me to tell the difference between certain characters (most specifically Omar the half-elven fighter and Gorthander the dwarven cleric). Not only that, but Defendi had made some questionable voice acting choices at certain points in the story (i.e., the aforementioned scene involving Damico bickering with his two party members and the Evil Overlord over the final climactic scene) that made it hard for me to take it seriously. Next time, Robert, if you’re reading this, I advise you to hire a handful of fellow readers to read certain parts so that there’s less confusion between the characters for untrained ears.
All in all, even though I didn’t hate Death by Cliché , especially in terms of how it began, I still didn’t feel compelled to listen to it a second time after I was done with it the first. It’s not a bad podcast at all, like I’ve said before, especially in terms of the quality of recording quality. At the same time, however, I’d be lying if I was to say that I loved it. Maybe it was just my serious demeanor that had gotten in the way of my enjoying this product, but hey, if nothing else, at least all ten episodes of this audiobook are available for free, so if nothing else, at least Final Redoubt Press can say that.
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