funny, but short. so if u like the point and click adventure style buy it on sale.

Was Puzzle Agent really made by the same company that brought us the much acclaimed Walking Dead?

So, just like Professor Layton, which inspired this game, we have an adventure game on our hands where the classical adventure game mechanisms (environmental puzzles, item combination, branching dialogues) have been replaced by logic puzzles, the vast majority of which have no actual tie to the story whatsoever.

The main problem with Puzzle Agent is that the puzzles aren't very good. Of the 37 that I've solved, I'd say only 5 to 8 were both fresh and challenging. The rest were either much too easy or felt really, really old. Far too many puzzles involved rotating tiles on a grid to form a loopy picture, or jigsaws of some sort. These were really not fun at all (but easy so at least you could get rid of most of them fast). When there was difficulty involved, it's unfortunately often because of poorly written instructions.

Another problem is the humour. It works occasionally. But 50% of the "jokes" involve characters staring at the main protagonist in silence when asked questions. Let me underline that: 50%!!! It's not exactly hilarious the first time, and it becomes completely, utterly stupid after a while.

It's not all bad. Like I said, a small number of puzzles were inventive. I also kind of liked the story (bar the humour), although I wish one shouldn't have to play the second episode to see the conclusion. (I won't!).

The art style is pleasant, but inconsistent, at least on PC. It's mostly "blurred/irregular lines", like in some comics, but then some stuff gets drawn with geometric precision, causing a very unaesthetic clash of styles. The animation is also very stiff, but I think that's on purpose. It may or may not bother you.

If there is one thing that I feel is wholly praise-worthy, it's the audio department. I loved the music. It sounds like a subtler version of Danny Elfman and admirably suits the story. And while the dialogues won't leave a lasting impression because of average to poor writing, the voice actors themselves made a commendably good job despite the material at hand.

Now, I'll be honest: I don't think puzzle adventure games have a bright future. It's a genre that is great in theory, but never works in practice. You'll always get more, better designed puzzles in a magazine (like GAMES Magazine) and the stories in those video games will always feel tacked on. I didn't like Puzzle Agent, but I didn't like Professor Layton either. However, if you absolutely must play a game from that narrow genre, well, Layton has better puzzles.

I wasn't expecting much, but I was actually really impressed with this game. There's kind of a Twin Peaks/Fargo vibe. The puzzles are interesting and varied, and some of them are pretty difficult. The music and art are pretty cool too.

Fantastic! A mix between, hm...Professor Layton and Fargo/Twin Peaks. It sounds ridiculous, but it totally works. The trailer is a perfect way to see what kind of atmosphere the game sets for you and the puzzles are fun throughout. It can be completed in only a couple of hours, but it's also only $5. Buy it!

Warning: some non-plot related spoilers ahead. Do not read if you want to be completely surprised by the game.

Puzzle Agent is a fantastic idea on paper: a hybrid between Joel and Ethan Coen's Fargo and solving puzzles. It is Professor Layton game set in the snowy midwest with plenty of hot dish of "you betcha" remarks added for fun.

At first glance, it certainly looks like it will deliver on its promise. While the humor is somewhat subdued (there are no character moments as genuinely funny as the ones found in Fargo) and the story takes its time getting interesting, the art style is appealing and the voice acting is fun. The music is also pitch-perfect, setting the mood to exactly the right type in each scene.

But a game like this is ultimately going to succeed or fail based on its puzzles. And that's where Puzzle Agent drops the ball. The puzzle quality and difficulty is all over the place. Some puzzles are clever exercises, such as the fuse box puzzle where players must figure out the correct pattern for the missing fuse and another where players must find the missing gnome on a shelf using an earlier picture negative of the shelf. But others are so simplistic that they belong in a Highlights magazine, such as a riddle about how many socks must be drawn from a drawer to guarantee a match and a "follow the curvy line in a crowd of lines" puzzle). Also boring: several jigsaw-style puzzles where objects automatically snap when they come close to each other, making the challenge negligible. Several puzzles are reused, but luckily, those are usually the more solid (if traditional) puzzles with (somewhat) progressively harder variants.

Making things worse is how some classic puzzles are shoehorned into odd themes (at one point, the lead character stumbles on a closed store, leading into a "draw a line from spot to spot without hitting a barrier" puzzle themed as football players practicing while working at a glass store - talk about a stretch). But some puzzles are just downright awful - the worst is probably convoluted puzzle involving fish eating other fish inside that personally took me spending two of my three allowed hints to even understand what the written instructions meant. A close runner-up is a puzzle about using a series of statements to determine who won an arm wrestling tournament - a puzzle that neglects to mention the format of the tournament in posing the question, making it solvable only for those who make that assumption (I'll save players some time: it's a single-elimination event, not a round-robin affair).

Even at a low price, I can't really recommend Puzzle Agent. The story is good, but not good enough that it is worth slogging through the puzzles (even if they can be solved very quickly with the ample hints available). As this review should make obvious, it isn't that great for fans of puzzles - a cheap newsstand puzzle magazine has puzzles of better quality. Puzzle Agent is a great idea, but it simply fails to deliver in execution.

EDIT: After playing Puzzle Agent 2 (which I purchased at the same time as the first), I would now advise adventure game fans to skip the first one and go straight to the "just good enough to recommend" sequel. Everyone else should probably skip the series entirely.