Puzzle Agent 2 Review
Last year, Puzzle Agent was released to little fan fare. Long time adventure game makers Telltale tried their hand at a Professor Layton style mystery-puzzle game and what came out of it could be considered a success. Critics seemed to like it, but with huge marquee titles coming from Telltale in Back to the Future and Jurassic Park, it was easy to overlook. Now, Puzzle Agent 2 to is out and for better or worse its another Puzzle Agent game.
You play as FBI Puzzle Agent Nelson Tethers. He is just off the success he had in the fist game when he decides to take a vacation. Instead of taking a proper vacation, he goes to visit the same small Minnesota town in which the first game is set because of unexplained loose ends left from the first adventure. Here’s the part in the review where I suggest you play Puzzle Agent 1 before even booting up 2.
In the first 10 minutes of Puzzle Agent 2, Tethers interacts with established characters from the first game that are only lightly introduced in the second. The game heavily references events of the first game and nearly all the characters you come across within the town are from the first game. This isn’t really a “fault” per-se, but having not initially played Puzzle Agent, I was significantly detached from the initial story threads of Puzzle Agent 2. The good news is that Puzzle Agent 1 is only $4.99. Paying $14.98 for two Puzzle Agent games is a pretty sweet deal (it’s slightly cheaper if you go through Steam), just keep in mind these games are both light on content and replay value.
After establishing the main drive for the plot, the story goes in surprising and satisfying directions. The juxtaposition of the quiet Minnesota town with the out of nowhere sci-fi angle of the story plays to Telltale’s comedic strength. While not laugh out loud funny, the subtle ridiculousness of the mystery will leave you smiling. The puzzles are often weaved into the story in overly contrived ways, but the characters do a good job referring to the puzzles as puzzles, as a way of saying “We know its kinda dumb, but hey this IS a puzzle game, you know”.
If you have played any of Telltale adventure games, you are familiar with item trading and item combining to progress the story. Puzzle Agent replaces these mechanics with puzzles. The traversal is minimal and at no point does the player have direct control of the character. Most of the game is spent surfing dialog trees and solving puzzles. Puzzle Agent has very little filler and absolutely no unnecessary mechanics.
Unlike Back to the Future (of which I played the first episode) where you are physically running Marty back and forth through town square looking for clues, Puzzle Agent only asks you to click once on the context sensitive portion of the screen and the investigation commences. This is a relief and in the end makes the game infinitely accessible.
Now onto the bread and butter, the puzzles. Many of them are logic based and others are abstract puzzle piece based, with other types popping in and out as well. Depending on your intellect level and experience with puzzle games, the difficulty can range from too easy to moderately hard. In my experience, the only trouble I had with the puzzles were the ones that had tricky or confusing instructions. The game inundates you with optional clues to use, so a player of any level shouldn’t be stuck too long on any given puzzle.
The only thing that may turn off players is the deliberate art style and animation. The character designs are based on Graham Annable’s Grickle comic. Its simple yet expressive and very low key. Annable was actually a creative director on the game, so the art style is genuine, but I can completely understand why someone would not like the visuals in Puzzle Agent.
For $9.99 Puzzle Agent 2 is a good buy. It’s fun and interesting, nearly any age can enjoy it and anyone that has experience with computers can play it. Consider getting it as a birthday present for your quirky aunt or even as a gift for your mom to use on her newly purchased Ipad. Its not going to break any records or blow anyone’s mind, but fun will be had and that’s all you really need.
Verdict: Easy to Recommend
