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Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent
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Graphics & Sound:
The absolute best thing going for Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent is Graham Annable. The animation style used for the game feels hand-drawn, with rough lines that don't always make neat connections, and objects that display frayed edges. What's interesting about the look is how it still flows through a cinematic filter, much like any other Telltale game we've played in the past. Instead of giving the sense that you're watching a Saturday-morning cartoon come to life, you feel like like the Sunday comics' section just jumped off its page to put on a show for you. There are echoes of the Cohen Brothers' film Fargo in here, an influence we doubt Telltale would disavow. The original characters are written and voiced with style, bringing the spirit of Scoggins, Minnesota to life on the screen. Everything, from the puzzle sequences to the cut-scenes that help move the story of Puzzle Agent forward, looks like it was scribbled on a legal pad and then transported magically into the game world. At a point in time where some games are pushing the envelope of photo-realism, Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent leads with good story-telling and solid gameplay, giving Annable the freedom to use his signature style in an entirely new format.
The voice acting is excellent, and not sparse. There were times early on in the game when we tapped our foot a few times waiting for dialogue to conclude, which might just be personal preference. Compared to the heavy focus on reading in games like the Professor Layton series, we greatly prefer spoken dialogue, but Telltale was a bit indulgent in places that slowed down the flow of the game. Musically, Puzzle Agent leans more toward atmosphere than staged dance numbers, but that's fine. Point-and-click games don't tend to rely on rousing action sequences against a backdrop of "Carmina Burana" to get their point across, so one would expect musical interludes here to be subtle. The overall mood that comes across in the music is quirky and dark, drawing from some of the same territory as the game's narrative, and making us wonder at times whether we'd been transported from Scoggins to Twin Peaks... |
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Gameplay:
Solving puzzles in Scoggins is the name of the game... er, actually the name of the game is Puzzle Agent, but you'll spend a lot of time trying to wrap your head around a multitude of puzzling events that have taken place in this remote Northern town. The most disturbing is an accident in the Scoggins' eraser factory, which is especially bad for Tethers' bosses at the White House who it is said need their erasers. Assigning Tethers to the case is logical, considering he's an expert in solving puzzles, but it's his first time in the field. This isn't Fox Mulder here, more like that guy Milton in Office Space that still comes to work even though everyone forgot about him... Tethers' favorite pastime is doing crossword puzzles and chewing gum. The gum helps him concentrate, which comes in handy later on in the game.
His assignment in Scoggins reveals a veritable nest of puzzling activity. Whatever happened here is obfuscated and veiled in a tangled mess of puzzles that Tethers has to solve before he can show his face back in Washington. The puzzles are introduced in a similar fashion to games like Professor Layton, so any new character or object of interest may hide a new conundrum. There will also be opportunities to gather clues that lead you closer to solving the mystery of what happened in the eraser factory, and the discovery of sinister twists in this otherwise affable town. The cast of characters you'll run into are a hoot, and there is a journal you can refer back to when you want to retrace your steps or review notes. There are logic brainteasers, visual puzzles, and others that require some mental heavy lifting. When Tethers hits a wall, he can use some of the gum he most disgustingly gathers around town, by picking it up used from random surfaces... Chewing gum helps this guy solve puzzles, so it's perfect that this becomes a device for hints. |
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Difficulty:
You'll need lots of gum to get the end of the game, unless you come into it with your Mensa certificate in hand... What may seem random or completely open-ended in a logic puzzle will eventually come into focus once you find a starting point and put things in order. There's no type of scratch-pad available in the game, which was a nice feature in the last Layton installment on DS. Some of you may just be able to put everything together in your noggins, but most of us are helped by the chance to make a few notes. Using hints robs points away from your overall rating, but several of these puzzles just won't fall unless you happen to be wired a certain way. Hidden shapes, codes, patterns, and color matching lends itself to those with excellent visual problem-solving abilities. The logic puzzles are like building a jigsaw puzzle in from the corners. You don't know what's in the middle, but every piece you can put in place makes things clearer. After it's all over and you've submitted your choice (accompanied hilariously by an estimate of taxpayer dollars spent in the process), you'll be scored against how many hints you used, and ultimately how many times you submitted an answer. As much fun as this game looks from the outside, it's deadly serious about its puzzles. Kids won't have much luck with this, although some of the older tweens and teens are on the verge of being able to work their way through some of these.
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Game Mechanics:
Apart from that missing scratch pad, all the necessary elements of the game are present. Adjusting the graphics' settings is simple, but not as automatic as we'd like. Going in and setting the resolution makes a huge difference in how Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent is displayed, and you really want to be able to appreciate the contrast between the crisp and chalky lines that make up Agent Tethers' world. There aren't many special controls to be found, but we hated the fact that speeding up dialogue isn't possible using a click or space-bar. Tapping through dialogue means missing the dialogue, rather than just short-cutting the voice acting. Sure, there's no great artistic reason to skip the spoken dialogue, unless you're in a hurry to get to those puzzles and prefer to read text. Puzzlers of all shapes, sizes, and preferences are out there, and we thought Puzzle Agent was a bit stingy in adapting to folks that prefer reading their dialogue over the voice-acting.
This is a minor quibble, of course. Short of some extended play option such as mini-games, or some kind of treasure hunt that would have compelled us to go back to Scoggins, Puzzle Agent is a short but sweet interlude. To what, we don't know, but we're hoping this will become part of a longer series. We asked this question prior to the game's launch, this year at E3, and heard a resounding "We'd like to see that happen." Fans will ultimately decide whether Tethers and his puzzles can come out to play again. Puzzle Agent doesn't necessarily have the audience or cult status of a Sam & Max or Wallace & Gromit, but it shares their commitment to quality gameplay. Home computers are such perfect companions for these types of games, so we'll vote for a continuation of the series, for sure. It's niche fare, but extremely well done, and original characters are increasingly hard to find in the gaming world. Kudos to Annable and Telltale for taking a chance on Puzzle Agent, and introducing the odd character of Nelson Tethers to us. |
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-Fridtjof, GameVortex Communications AKA Matt Paddock |
Minimum System Requirements:
Mac OS X 10.5, Intel Core 2 Duo processor, Not recommended for Macs with integrated graphics |
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Test System:
Mac OS X 10.6, 3 GHz Intel Core Duo, 4GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 9400 e256MB VRAM |
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