Never Too Old To Play™

Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent is quite a departure from developer Telltale Games’ modus operandi. It seems like the game is just the first episode in an ongoing series, much like many of Telltale’s other projects such as the Sam & Max and Tales of Monkey Island series. However, instead of being a point-and-click adventure game in the vein of such classic titles that pull at many a gamer’s heartstrings like King’s Quest and Leisure Suit Larry, Puzzle Agent is more like the critically acclaimed ongoing puzzle game series Professor Layton, exclusive to the Nintendo DS platform.

Theoretically, this is a good thing, but Telltale’s sincere flattery falls far short with rather rudimentary graphics that have an inconsistent performance, overly simple puzzles that barely bend the mind, and a rather convoluted plot that tries too hard to be witty and smart but ends up being messy and pointless.

Quite a departure indeed.

You play as the sole member of the FBI’s Puzzle Research Division who is sent to Scoggins, Minnesota to determine why the factory that manufactures the erasers the White House uses closed down. The FBI sends you because the only responses to their inquiries have been cryptic puzzles. The further you dig into the mystery surrounding the events at the eraser factory the weirder it gets, but I won’t spoil anything here as the revelation of all the strange plot artifacts is really the only reward you get for solving some of the easiest brain teasers I’ve ever encountered.

The designers of Puzzle Agent clearly tried to take a page out of Level-5′s book in the design of the game’s puzzles. Just like in the Professor Layton series, the puzzles are just straight up traditional mind benders wrapped within a fictional context so the gamer doesn’t feel like they’re being hit with a set of random puzzles. However, these puzzles play second fiddle to Level-5′s in pretty much every way imaginable from the quality of the creative writing used in the contextual preface to the order of magnitude greater ease in the solutions (only two or three puzzles in the entire game gave me any sort of challenge, and one instance was because the instructions weren’t clear).

Really, that’s the core gripe. When it comes to the artistic design or the story, one can easily cite the “eye of the beholder” defense, but there’s really no excuse for the overly simple puzzles that I continually breezed through. Ultimately, I play a game like this or Professor Layton for the puzzles: the extra fluff like plot and presentation are nice extras, but I want to feel like I was challenged when playing a game that is centered around what are essentially brain exercises.

Don’t get me wrong. Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent is not a bad game. If you’re a huge fan of puzzlers such that the fact you’re solving puzzles is more important than the quality of the puzzles – and the game surrounding them – then you won’t go wrong with this game. There are plenty of puzzles for gamers to go through. I simply feel that the Professor Layton series on the Nintendo DS is a cut above Puzzle Agent, and that your time would be better spent on those games instead.

Final score: 3 out of 5

Parent to parent

You can safely buy this game for your children to play, and to a degree it could be a helpful game in keeping their minds sharp (although like I said in my review the Professor Layton series would be a much better choice). The cartoony art style might be just up some youngsters’ alley, and the wacky and inconsistent plot might be appealing.

Experience this for yourself!

• Puzzle Agent (Windows/Mac) (Steam)
• Puzzle Agent HD (iPad) (iTunes)
• Puzzle Agent (iPhone) (iTunes)