Well it’s game six of the Telltale-a-thon and boy am I excitedinterested crying.
It is Puzzle Agent! Puzzle Agent was released in 2010 for iPad. Yes… it’s a tablet game.
The horror!
So we start the game off meeting our hero protagonist.
Greetings from space?
No not him, the other main protagonist!
Nice hat….
Our protagonist works for the FBI in the puzzle solving division. Since no one really solves puzzles when solving crimes he has really not had a lot of field work. However here comes a crime full of puzzles!
But before you can go you must unscramble this clue:
IT DOESN’T EVEN SPELL A FREAKING WORD!!!
The game is full of the various puzzle types and if you are a fan of puzzles, this game is for you. This is a “jigsaw puzzle.” Pieces have to be put in the proper places. There are many variants of this (the food game) but there are a lot of jigsaw puzzles.
There are also riddles involving identification. If Cindy beat Jimmy and Jimmy beat Luis and Luis beat Cindy than who won!?!? These are the sort of riddles involved in identification in which you are only given enough information to be able to piece it together assuming you can make some educated guesses.
There are also tones of puzzles dealing with physics and abstract thinking.
Since there are so many different puzzle types you are likely to be REALLY good at some and really bad at others. Generally speaking people who are visual (IE good at puzzles) are not that great at reading based puzzles.
It just wouldn’t be a Telltale game without a speaking checklist
As you solve puzzles you can progress through the story. Sometimes you will have to talk to characters to get information. With this information you can unlock more puzzles to further progress the story.
The game is about 4 hours long.
Truthfully
Honestly
In total honestness
Being earnest
This game isn’t bad.
Actually…. it’s surprisingly good.
I jumped into this game expecting it to be the bottom of the pile and honestly this tablet game is the best one I’ve played yet. It’s a short experience and you’ll have to get Puzzle Agent 2 to finish the story…. but it’s actually a pretty fun game. I say game because out of the games I’ve played so far, this is the only one that actually feels like a game.
Well we’re on to game #5 in our Telltale month special and this time it’s…. Law and Order Legacies.
I have to get something off of my chest.
I hate crime shows.
Not only that, I hate Law and Order.
It goes beyond hate, it’s what these shows represent. They require no talent to write and rarely require any character development. You take a bunch of “tough cops” and then you add in a crime which they always solve.
So going into this game I have a nasty taste in my mouth. But I have to give this game it’s shot.
So we start off with our all star cast of characters.
The cast of Law and Order
Truthfully despite it being very cartoonish it looks very much like the people on the show. Obviously this game is somewhat of a hodge podge of the various Law and Order shows. So thumbs up to the folks at Telltale Games, you really can make a human character. There are a lot of games that do terrible at this.
The key to their success is that they don’t show the lower half of the body in the game… ever. There wasn’t a single scene in the entire game where I ever had to see the legs of these people. Video game developers absolutely suck at designing leg movements. I’m not sure what it is exactly…. they’re just bad at it.
But no this game gets it right, never ever ever ever show the bottom half of the body. In fact I doubt they even have developed legs. Okay I’m getting caught up on this topic… time to move on.
There are two gameplay mechanics that will guide you through the game.
The first is interrogation.
The careful art of interrogation
You get to interview a witness. First you pick a topic. They give you an answer to a question and you have to state whether you believe them or not.
After this you have to back it up with a statement.
2-3 of the statements will be insanely similar and will be based on specific syntax and grammar useage. To this extent you are warned that you must “pay attention to details.”
You get three guesses wrong and you have to start the interview over again.
This makes it all very repetitive. On top of this you can never skip dialogue. By hitting the “Escape” key like I did it brought you back to the main menu and gave you no option at all to go back to where you left off.
GOD DAMMIT! I screamed at the top of my lunges.
After you’re successful in interrogating a potential witness you have to look at evidence.
How did the evidence go missing?
You will have 10 guesses as to where the evidence is. It is no all seen in plain sight. Sometimes you have to look in bags, look under objects, and honestly… just completely guess.
The game makes you draw a red circle with your music around objects. By drawing this circle you can select objects.
The game gives you tips as to what you will need to find based on the body of evidence.
If you find all of the items you move on. If you don’t…. well you Retry.
I successfully completed the first Part of the game and it was the same thing over and over. You get someone to interview. Your interview succeeds. You get to a search for evidence. You find all the evidence you need. The story moves forward.
I think what bothered me most about this game (other than being a Law and Order game) is how very scripted it was.
It’s possible that if I actually enjoyed crime dramas I would have actually enjoyed watching the game happen.
However I don’t.
Unfortunately the writing for the game (much like the TV shows) is not very good. Not even fans of the show should really think there is anything exceptional here.
So if you’re counting that’s 1/5 Telltale Games I’ve recommended so far.
This is not the one, it is one of the other 4/5 that suck.
A lot has been said about the Telltale Games adaptation about the comic book “The Walking Dead.” The first is that it is “Game of the Year” according to Spike TV, rated within the top ten lists of IGN, Gamespot, Machinima, and PC Gamer.
What’s also been said about this game is that it has amazing writing that is worthy of “The Walking Dead” fame.
But is that just it? Is it only great if you’ve watched The Walking Dead already? I’ve decided that I will postpone watching this “Walking Dead” show until after this review and take this game on it’s merits.
Is Telltale’s The Walking Dead a good game? Ora bad game?
Synopsis
Much like many other Telltale games on Steam I was having problems launching this one. It has a lot to do with my 64-bit Windows 7 operating system (I knew 64-bit was a bad idea).
So after going through a solution it told me to update my audio drivers. Well I have no idea what updating an audio driver will have to do with the game just not starting… but I can’t fault Telltale if my audio drivers are not up to date.
Even zombies can’t get stuff working
Of course it didn’t work.
While I was at it though I checked all of my drivers and they were fine.
C:\program files (x86)\steam\steamapps\common\the walking dead
That would not work either.
I was asked to Verify my Game Cache. After waiting 10 minutes on this… nothing happened.
Finally I found a solution where I right clicked on the executable file and ran it in Compatibility Mode. Upon getting here I ran the game in Windows 98/ME. Apparently this is a common problem with Telltale Games and might have allowed me to play Back to the Future Ep. 4 and E. 5.
I intended to review this game first but because of all these problems and how long it took to get this to work it’s fourth.
So what do we know about The Walking Dead. Well for reasons unexplained the world came to an end as we know it. A zombie plague of which there is no cure has spread across the world and the small remnants of survivors are deciding how to live their lives.
The game has replay value in that your choices effect the remainder of the game. Everyone talked about this girl “Clementine” who is around all the time and people did what they could to save her. So as a tactic for this game I’ve decided to avoid this hyper emotional ending by feeding Clementine to the zombies wherever possible.
Cruel?
Clementine is the only character who just can’t die
Yes, but I’m not about to rate this game based on a multi-choice system in which EVERYONE is seemingly going to choose this Clementine path now am I?
Well apparently I had no choice. Every time I was given the option to save Clementine and I didn’t… well I just lost the whole game.
Instead most of the choices are spoken. You’ll speak with a character named “Larry” and from your conversation he’ll understand that you’ve got something against him. So next time a conversation comes up he’ll cleverly reference all the stuff from the previous conversation.
Hard choices also work like this. You’ll be put into a difficult moral scenario and be given two choices. The choices less chosen always have some pretty awkward dialog that doesn’t sound like it was all that well planned. The end result despite your choice is the same, the only difference is on how people respond to you.
My other favorite is when you only have one option on the screen and you have a time limit. If the time limit runs out you can lose the game. Alternatively it running out actually means nothing at all, it’s just another choice.
This creates a problem where you do whatever it is by default anyway… and then you get a message pops up saying “Clementine notes that you saved her life.” Well thanks, I was hoping she’d think I was an asshole… it’s kind of the route I was trying to go with.
The characters are also trying to warn me every time I do something rash. I went out and admitted to murdering a senator and suddenly a person jumps on me saying “hey you shouldn’t say that it’s not nice!”
Forgot to take my drugs again
Every now and then you will have a quick time event in which you have to spam a button until you get a gauge down and then hit another button to lock it in. This generally happens when a zombie jumps on top of you.
So this game is more like a Bioware game in which the sum of your choices build a different color of ending… as opposed to Skyrim in which your choices drastically effect the landscape.
The main point of the game is ‘adventure’ theme in which you take one object and rub it against another.
I generally dislike the modern adventure game because the goal is to seemingly make it as obscure as possible. A typical scenario might be that you have to put some alcohol in a sergeant’s coffee, which you swiped from a homeless person after giving him some apple pie which you took off the ledge of an old ladies house which caused a warrant to go out for your arrest. The alcohol in the sergeant’s coffee makes him fall asleep and you can escape (but first you need to steal his badge because you’ll need that later to break into a bank).
The Walking Dead doesn’t have this. Things had sort of obvious natures. I found a remote control and it turned on TVs. I logically figured out that turning on the TV might distract zombies. It did, but it wasn’t loud enough I was told IF ONLY SOMETHING COULD BREAK THE WINDOW. So I threw a brick at the window and BOOM I solved the puzzle.
Must aim at thing in time!
For veteraned adventure gamers this will not offer much of a challenge. With Sam and Max I can say that I’ve had to turn the game off and revisit it over months because some of the puzzles were so hard.
This makes The Walking Dead a casual dish in a genre that is sort of only for hardcores. Walking Dead is to adventure gaming as Tropico 4 is to simulation gaming. Maybe I should replay Tropico 4.
Anyway.
Concluding Thoughts
Is it game of the year?
Absolutely not.
Is it a good game?
No, it’s not really a game.
Is it for everyone?
No…. probably not.
Is that going to stop fans of the series from yelling and screaming about it?
No… probably not.
The game has a lot of problems with it. Like most Telltale games there are some glaring sound issues. Like most Telltale Games it’s not exactly an install and go game… you need to tinker around with it yourself.
When I went to the Telltale Games website looking for customer support they provided me with this walkthrough.
Go to your neighbor Jared’s house and drink tea with him
Mention The Walking Dead
Jared will say he loves that game
Jared will now be available to fix stuff, ask him to fix stuff
He’ll need a screw driver and a video card
Go to neighbor Melissa’s house and flirt with her.
She warns you that your girlfriend might get jealous.
Ask her if you can borrow her screwdriver so your girlfriend thinks everything is on the up and up.
Go to Cousin Dillon’s house.
Ask cousin Dillon what he’s doing
He’ll tell you he’s fixing his computer.
Inform him his video card is probably blown and you’ll get the same model… you just need the video card.
Take your video card and screw driver to Jared.
Jared fixes your computer
The Walking Dead game still doesn’t work…. TO BE CONTINUED IN EPISODE 2!
No but seriously.
I don’t find it much of a game and the fact that nothing was challenging about it made it kind of boring. I get why fans of the show might like this.
To me it’s like watching The Walking Dead on TV and every time a zombie shows up you have to madly wave around you remote control before the show will continue.
Because of that I’m just not giving The Walking Dead a recommendation for purchase. It’s just not very good.
When I purchased the entire Telltale Games library off of Steam I received this game as well. I adamantly installed it thinking… wonder what kind of twist Telltale would put on Texas Holdem.
As it turns out…. none.
There is one button “Start Tournament.” There are no options to adjust difficulty or who you play.
You always play against the same four people.
So let’s introduce our players!
We have the OLD GAY GUY!
We have the CAT BURGLAR!
WE have the SURFER DUDE!
And we have GRANDMA! (her name is literally grandma).
And our final player is you “THE PLAYER!”
Yeah the game is so low tech you can’t even name your own player he is just forever called by the announcer by the name “THE PLAYER” for all of time.
Texas Holdem has some basic rules.
Each player gets two cards.
A round of betting occurs.
The dealer lays down three community cards.
A round of betting occurs.
The dealer adds one more community card.
A round of betting occurs.
The dealer lays down a final community card.
Final round of betting.
With the community cards you need to make the best poker hand with your two cards and the community cards to form a five-card hand. If you live under a rock and don’t know poker hands (or you have boobs) follow this link.
Before each play each character will say something annoying, you quickly learn to skip their annoying dialogue.
Once a player is out of chips they are eliminated. The goal is to eliminate everyone. Once everyone is eliminated… you can start over from the beginning. Yeah there’s actually no getting around it, the game is worth one play of which it took me only 20 minutes from start to finish.
Overall this game is very bad and I would avoid it at all costs. Gambling games require a sense of continuity and advancement, something this game lacks. It’s not fun, it’s short, and there’s nothing significantly different about this game.
Continuing with Telltale month we now look at Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People. The game was released in five episodes (which is how I have it) and is now available as one giant game. The game goes for $30. So how does it play?
The Brief: Strong Bad
The year was 2002. I had begun my first year of university and my roommate had pulled up a small flash cartoon called “Homestar Runner.”
Upon investigating the site more we found a section called “Strong Bad’s Emails.”
This small section of the website was the evil villain of Strong Bad writing evil emails to people.
Strong Bad was a Mexican wrestler villain who has nothing but bad for people. His email responses often made fun of people who were writing in.
There is a matching mini game in which you must kill the Teen Girl Squad
Strong Bad Email proved to be the most popular part of the website. As the Strong Bad Emails went viral around 2003 the website developers brought Strong Bad Email back and put a lot of work into trying and making it a once a week thing. Today there are hundreds of Strong Bad Emails.
The Home Star Runner website proved to be somewhat of a cult classic. Strong Bad Emails became a way to create new characters for the website as people would write in and ask retarded questions about random non-existent characters like “Homsar Runner”… a very clear spelling error of Homestar Runner.
The Strong Bad franchise despite being old and dated still holds weight to the fans and is still cool enough to wear some Strong Bad swag.
But enough of this, on to the game!
Synopsis
Each of the five games took less than 30 minutes to download. So you’re looking at about 2.5 hours with a premium high speed connection… pretty accessible.
The game has two basic control mechanisms, point and click. You point and click to move. If you double click you will run instead of walk. You click on people to talk with them and click on objects to interact with them.
With people they will give you clues on exactly what you are supposed to do. They will indicate prejudices and biases they might have against something or someone.
Objects can either be looked at or picked up. Looked at objects bring a comedy sketch into play.
Objects that can be used must be picked up and clicked on to a person or thing. Some of these are a little more obvious than others. For example when you get hedge clippers it’s obvious you should clip some hedges with it.
The game comes in five chapters of which the stories really do not matter too much. Each game (five episodes) gives a short story based on an email that Strongbad receives. Each averages about two hour of gameplay and maybe 2-3 hours of time spent trying to figure the game out.
Strongbad Fashion Show? How Odd
Each of the games also features many mini-games. Each of these mini-games is an Atari age retro game and has its own custom controls that is explained.
As an example there is Atari Boxing. This was a top down boxing game in which you could only shy from being punched, left punch, and right punch. The players moved up and down and could not move left and right. This game was called “Snake Boxing 5” in which the only real difference is you are fighting snakes… and possibly a slight graphical upgrade.
The game also features a postcard game in which The Cheat will take pictures of Strongbad posing in various outfits that you acquire while playing.
Ep. 1 – Homestar Ruiner
Strongbad receives an email telling him to once and for all beat up Homestar Runner. Strongbad goes out to do that when he finds Homestar Runner and Pom Pom are going to be in The Second Trianual Race to the End of the Race. Coach Z indicates that registration is closed and he’s not allowed to be in it.
Pom Pom is a giant Pom
So Strongbad decides to have Homestar Runner lose the race instead.
This episodes features Snake Boxing 5, the race mini-game, Teen Girl Squad mini-game, and the heist mini-game.
Ep. 2 – Strongbadia The Free
As the game opens Strongbad is asked what the worst legislation The King of Town has put in place. Strongbad states he has no problems with the King of Town. As he sends the letter The King of Town and the Poopsmith storm in. King of Town informs Strongbad of a new “Email Tax” and straps a house arrest on Strongbad.
Upon escaping from his home Strongbad secedes from “The Town” and forms Strongbadia, a new independent monarchy ruled by Strongbad. But no one else wants to be a part of his Kingdom.
The Cheat has formed his own nation within Strongbadia “The Cheat and Tiria.”
Strong Sad has annexed Strongbad’s house and called it “The Bleak House.”
The Poopsmith has a riot shield and is not smithing poop
The cantina has formed an independent neutral nation… and black market dealings.
Homsar has formed Homsar’s Reserve, an aboriginal themed land.
Pom Pom has formed a Japanese disco called Pomarina.
Strongmad has formed his country of…um… “Country.”
Homestar Runner and Maripan can’t seem to agree on a name for their country.
Strongbad has to unify… or conquer, all of the nations between him and King of Town so he can mobilize forces to depose King of Town and restore email order.
The game features the mini-game “Math Warriors” in which you have to solve math problems with punches and sonic booms (think Street Fighter here). There is also another episode of the Teen Girl Squad! At the very end of the game you will unlock the Wargame mini-game. It’s kind of like chess…. with Homsar.
Ep. 3 – Baddest of the Bands
Upon starting the game Strongbad is trying to play his favorite Limozeen based game when his system breaks. Upon bringing it to Bubs he is informed he needs a full bag of cash… which he doesn’t have. Bubs suggests that if he was to start a battle of the bands he could actually make enough money to pay for the repairs to his Funstation.
The game focuses on organizing a battle of the bands and re-uniting bands made of various characters in the Strongbad world.
The Cheat really rocks your socks off
This game uniquely has no mini-games until you finish the game. Since the point of the game is to repair your game station it doesn’t offer a single mini-game until it ends and you can play an Atari version of a side shooter game.
Ep. 4 – Dangeresque 3
Probably the funniest of the episodes Dangeresque 3 is a Super 8 movie created by Strong Bad featuring all of the characters of Strongbadia.
In it Strongbad playing the character of “Dangeresque” has to get the rainforest saving formula for a woman and upon doing so winds up into a giant mystery to solve.
He’s not dangerous… he’s Dangeresque!
The game is done with with terrible effects and obvious stunt double transitions (anywhere where there is scenes of someone getting hit Strong Sad is inserted).
There is only one mini-game an odd space shooter minigame. The controls are not displayed for the PC version of the game and I hit Ctrl. This caused one guy to get encased in a bubble and I have no idea what that meant. All I know is that it moved me through the story and I never wanted to try this mini game again.
Ep. 5 – 8-Bit is Enough
After Strong Bad accidentally falls into the Trogdor machine this causes Trogdor machine to come to life. Strong Bad calls up the technical service who are reluctant to help. As Strong Bad is trying to fix the machine technical service call back indicating that by adding a new board he will bring on the end of the world. The end result is Trogdor coming to life.
Video games are all over the world. Homestar Runner is constantly adding in non-important information you probably already know like the quest objective givers from Metal Gear (and at awkward times). There is a Luigi’s Mansion type game at Strongbad’s house.
Does that Trogdor Machine have Trogdor Arms?
Marzipan has transformed into an ape and is throwing crates.
There are also a number of game worlds you can enter including Peasant’s Quest, some sort of collecting fruit game, and I Wanna Be the Guy. Strong Bad’s goal is to bring the gaming world back together and defeat Trogdor!
Despite this being a game about gaming there is only one mini-game. It is a 2D space shooter game in which you have to dodge objects.
The Verdict
As a fan of Homestar Runner I understood a lot of the jokes and what they were about.
However as a person who has advanced 10 years beyond Strongbad’s EmailsI felt none of the humor was all that funny. No there was some parts that would actually make me laugh, but none of that was tied into the story.
The game itself is far superior to most or all of the adventure games out there. The game is not riddled with too many hints and it gives you tones of room to figure things out on your own. You are encouraged to click on every single object and every single person in what would be considered a very sandbox adventure game.
The map navigates you through points and you choose where everything goes
The cutting point for me is cost of the game vs. the content of the game. The game sells for $25 and all five episodes are going to be about 10 hours. To me if you want this game it will have more to do with your affinity of retro games and less to do with adventure games.
Oh, the sound quality of all these games is really bad. Worth mentioning that you’ll hear a resonance the entire time. It’s something you don’t really appreciate because games haven’t had this kind of sound quality since Doom.
As an adventure game it is a great well-rounded experience. However there are all sorts of high score gathering retro games planted all over these games that you can try to work towards a personal best in.
Another problem comes with the development of episodic content. If you get the episodes your games will not link together and you will lose the coveted high scores and fashion items from previous games. However if you buy the full game you will get all of this stuff.
For me this game gets a thumbs up, I felt it was well executed, no hand holding, and retro games comes as a bonus. For most I’d think they might want to get this on sale.
TheGameGuru.Me 
