...
Saying that players should get a dictionary out probably isn't very appropriate. Ignoring that interrupting the gaming experience isn't a good idea, how many non-US dictionaries have "dime" in them? I was surprised to find that one of my dictionaries did....
Well, if you paid more than 2 cent for the dictionary it better does.
(Checking the dictionaries I have here, both the English-English and the English-German ones could explain to me very well what a dime is.
Not that I would have needed that during the game as I gained the ability to understand basic English about 20 years ago)
And I think the assumption that you can understand English is a lot more reasonable than that you know 10 digits of pi
Also, you have downloaded this game from Telltale's website. This tells me three things:
You have a working computer.
You have a web browser on your computer.
You have an internet subscription.
Given these premises, it should take about five seconds to fire up your browser and enter define dime into Google.
Yes, it sucks to have to look something up to finish the puzzle. Yes, I would have preferred it if the coins were labelled with their values too. Still, let's not make a bigger deal out of it then it is.
It was clear from the start that this game was going to be presented in American English; words like "penny" and "dime" aren't very obscure. It's possible these aren't in your vocabulary, but it I don't think the game designers are to blame for that.
I was able to Alt-Tab my way out and search for the coins. Also checked the needed digits of PI, too. Didn't really bother me.
What bothered me was the count of the puzzles. Also, most of them were actually pretty easy (one puzzle was actually a QTE segment in disguise). Though, there were less "drag that to that so that you will get a bigger that" puzzles. They also fell into less repetition with puzzles so I'm aight with that. The story was OH MY GOD magnificent; it was the absurdity and weirdness that Telltale had known to deliver in the good ol' days. The presentation of it wasn't as dramatic as the first one, but it made it up with absolutely gorgeous moments of the climax. The revelation was also tidied up with all the irrelevant loose ends knotted quite well. Brilliant writing.
All in all worths the money and is a respectful conclusion to the first game. Good job guys.
Enjoyed the game EXCEPT for the goddamn bonus robot puzzles! I try and try to solve them and when I do it I've already tried it 5 more times so the game doesn't even celebrate my triumphant moment and instead downright insults me by calling me BORDERLINE.
I just finished the game, and well... I am a bit disappointed:
The story gets really odd and crazy throughout the game. There are nice elements, for example Korka with this stimulating russian bond-girl-touch, but the game doesn't really fit together at whole in my opinion. You meet Korka twice and then she is dropped from the storyline as if the writers have forgotten she is there. Many other characters taken from part one are not developed further in the game.
It seems to me, the writers made 30 minutes brainstorming about what might happen in Scoggins and just sticked to whatever came to their minds without reconsidering. Even after considering the supernatural elements, too many are too far-fetched and not really plausible in my opinion.
Then there are less puzzles in the game than in the first episode (PA1: 37 puzzles, PA2: 33 puzzles). But that would not be a real problem if the puzzles would be really good. The puzzles are less fancy and repeated too often. Even puzzles from the first episode are repeated.
Sometimes the description could be better. (Hey, this is a computer game! Why not implement some visual animation to describe some of them??)
No, really, there are so much really nice and good puzzles out there, and then I have to move furniture (and other things) around or sort pictures chronological several times. It is really a shame. I want to agree with richmcd, too. He complains about the combination of bad puzzles which don't make much sense within the story.
I would have liked more freedom while playing, too. The game is 100% linear and there is for example seldom the possibility to skip a puzzle, continue at another point and then come back to the puzzle. Sometimes when there is only one single hotspot on the screen I wonder why the game is not completely designed as a movie and only interrupts when a new puzzle appears.
I often travelled to other locations where I did not have to go and found nothing new there. Why not include additional information you can get from the people? Why not include easter eggs and/or hidden puzzles, or hints for puzzles which are hidden in another location? Why not give the player the possibility to just do stuff which isn't important for the game but maybe fun? I am thinking about something like the bonus tasks in the Strong Bad episodes, like collecting something which you can find in Nelson's office in the end. There is probably much more you can do to enhance the gaming experience!
Well... some criticism from my point of view because I really expected better puzzles, a good story and some new surprises in comparison to part one. It was fun to play nevertheless, but I hope you will consider the comments from your customers. Thank you.
Well, if you paid more than 2 cent for the dictionary it better does.
(Checking the dictionaries I have here, both the English-English and the English-German ones could explain to me very well what a dime is.
Not that I would have needed that during the game as I gained the ability to understand basic English about 20 years ago)
And I think the assumption that you can understand English is a lot more reasonable than that you know 10 digits of pi
It's got nothing to do with knowing English. Dime isn't an English word so far as I'm aware (apparently it has French roots), and doesn't have any meaning or use beyond North American currency.
Pi on the other hand is a very basic, very visible pattern and something a person can discover on their own, regardless of their language or cultural origins (unless you come from some culture where studying circles is forbidden).
If you're talking about general knowledge, what makes you think that more people know about North American currency (or even speak English for that matter) than know of Pi?
Yes, it sucks to have to look something up to finish the puzzle. Yes, I would have preferred it if the coins were labelled with their values too. Still, let's not make a bigger deal out of it then it is.
I don't know that I'm making a bigger deal out of it than it needs to be. Aside from the first time I mentioned it, I've only continued to talk about it when responding to others to clarify what about the puzzle made for a negative experience (in this thread, anyway).
I'll agree that it's an issue of vocabulary, but the vocabulary is unrelated to the puzzle itself. I'm pretty confident that that wasn't purposeful obfuscation, and whilst the words are probably appropriate to the setting of the game, it seems like things ended up the way they did because it was overlooked rather than intentional.
Also, if this is the biggest criticism people can come up with for the puzzle content, then that in itself is saying something
I know you're half joking, but I'm not sure that's a reasonable conclusion. It's not the only puzzle worth criticising, just the only one where the criticism wouldn't simply be that the puzzle is boring, trivial or recycled from somewhere else. I think the only puzzle in the whole game that took me more than half a minute to solve was the jigsaw forest maze. (Oh and the leaflet puzzle, but only because I misread that there had to be EXACTLY 50 delivered). I'm not including the two bonus puzzles because I couldn't be bothered to try them. The interface to adjust the program was irritating and the puzzles seemed to have absolutely no connection with the plot or the setting in general.
More constructively, I think there is a problem with the interface. One of the good things about Professor Layton (or rather, the fact that it's on the Nintendo DS) is that you can see all the information at once: the puzzle can be on one screen while the instructions are on the other. Also there was the option to overlay your own notes after the first one, which means the puzzles didn't have to be simple enough to be done in your head. (I'm in favour of tricky puzzles but, like alt-tabbing to do a google search, I think any computer game that makes you reach for a pen and paper has a design issue.)
In Puzzle Agent, you often have to press a button to review the instructions (or the puzzle itself in the case of the logic ones) which is actually pretty irritating. You wouldn't print a crossword with the grid on one page and the clues on the other, would you? Also the font is pretty large, so it seems like you're seriously limited as to how much text can fit on the screen. This is especially true for the explanations of the puzzles: these were some of the most interesting parts of Professor Layton, but often required two full screens to do, with a diagram on one and an explanation on the other. If you're only going to give yourself about four lines of text to work with then it almost seems worth stripping the feature out entirely.
Puzzle Agent 2 WAS an 8/10 for me, but that got downgraded to a 6/10 Overall, the ending, from the point where you escape your hotel room onwards just felt rushed, like the game took a mixed dose of LSD and Speed and it just messed up the flow and felt more like it was rushed to deadline rather than explained and well thought out.
I don't think TT will squeeze a game like this in between big franchises 3 months apart (BttF wrapped up in June, Walking Dead and Jurassic Park launch in Sept) again in a hurry.
@Jake: You're a mastermind behind Jurassic Park, aren't you? I seem to have a vague recollection.
I'm a little disappointed. About two thirds the way through the game it completely stopped being scary for me. After the gnomes were explained the game just became a simple puzzle game and the story never really seemed to matter after that. And what was the point of the
Lunar Run puzzle
. It doesn't seem like it affects anything no matter if you fail or not. I only succeeded once and I still made it to the end.
Most of the game was great and the wonderfully unnerving atmosphere was there in spades. But after a certain point it just all stopped for me when we started learning too much. It was an interesting direction to take it, but also cliche.
The Hidden People are aliens? The government is behind everything?
It completely lost its feeling of isolation and sense of terror because
you weren't really alone anymore after the government showed up...and they're not scary at all
. And I also thought that
the skier was one of the astronauts
. I did like how during the first half everything made you question
if the Hidden People really existed and if it wasn't just the lunar ray making everyone (including you) crazy
. However, I hoped it wasn't true...and while it turned out to not be quite true, it still was a let down because of the previous points I mentioned.
As far as the puzzles are concerned, they were nice and difficult. Good stuff. No complaints really.
I don't want to see the Hidden People again. We know too much. They're not scary anymore.
Oh yes agreed. I think even Graham Annable said in his interview that the longer you keep the Hidden People around the more they lose their mystery and the more futile it is to try and preserve the sense of fear/dread.
I also think the story got a little too cliche because it was appended to the previous game rather than being a continuous flow or story, so the writing couldn't be as tight. It's like adding a sequel to a movie there was supposed to be no sequel for. Not that I'm sure this is what happened but it's what it felt like.
The bit that concerns me is that Puzzle Agent 2 was meant to be a full game. It honestly didn't feel any longer than most of the S&M Season 3 and ToMI episodes.
Well, it's a full $10 game; the pre-order price was the same as the current regular price of individual ToMI episodes.
Regarding the ending being confused or seeming rushed, remember that PA1 was a pilot. Graham Annable said around the time of PA1 release that they had the entire Scoggins story already mapped out, presumably for a typical five-episode series. So I suspect the problems stem from having to condense the existing ideas into one episode-length game. The fans wanted a conclusion and they wanted to give us one even if they couldn't support a full series. I have some sympathy that that was a difficult thing to do, story-wise.
I was having fun with this game. It was very linear and the puzzles were easy, repetitive and jarring, but at least the story kept me interested. But around the point the agents showed up things went south fast. The story became rushed, muddled and confusing... It lacked a conclusion of any kind, a bunch of plot points were just dropped and forgotten...
For me, this game looks like a rushed mess, made during the lunch breaks. 4/10
I agree with most people. The first half of the game is as wonderful as the first Puzzle Agent, with its eerie atmosphere, characters and events (I especially liked
the whole part with the Astronaut leaving a message, the search for missing persons, the entrance of Korka... Olav's cabin was very good too
), but the second half feels rushed and with too many answers in too little time. Also, the answers weren't that good - too much cliché as someone already pointed out - I admit I lost my interest when
the whole tower of the first game crashed down, with the hidden people being good, the brotherhood being good, the astronaut being a real astronaut...
.
The puzzles were too simple or too strange, poor puzzle design imho, as rushed as the story ending - even though some good ones were present I must admit.
All in all I still love its atmosphere, music and artsy graphics, and some of the new story ideas, but the first Puzzle Agent probably took me to expect too much this one is decent but not wonderful as PA.
I don't know what to expect from Bermuda also, I think Scoggins was a great setting.
I regret not being able to play a full series.
I'm really torn on this one (expect the following sentences to be all over the place, ranting, and generally making little to no sense).
The writing was probably the high point of the game. It was sharp, witty, and oftentimes even hilarious. In the first half of the game at least, Nelson is a fantastic, likable character who is great to play as.
The puzzle were pretty good overall. Probably better than the first game. It was fun to solve them, and for the most part they weren't frustrating or obtuse.
I have to ask though, what is up with the "Nelson's Run" puzzle? Is that really what decides which ending you get? Because it makes absolutely zero sense. Someone please explain it to me, though I don't know if I want to go through the entire game again just to see it.
Also, since I'm American the coin puzzle didn't bother me though the Digits in Space one was a little bit annoying. The Monosaki one at the end practically killed an already dying game for me though. Seriously, you're gonna end the game with a puzzle about the
Gregorian calender
?! The full-circleness of the Lunar Circuit puzzle was awesome and I got it on my first try, but the last two required puzzles were terrible.
The story/atmosphere was the big letdown of the game for me, especially since Puzzle Agent 1 became my fifth-favorite game of all time because of its amazingly creepy and darkly funny story/atmosphere. I swear pretty much everything about that story was pitch-perfect. But I digress.
The game felt creepy when you first get to Scoggins, with Bjorn disappearing into the shadows and all. Mrs. Garrett was great with the not giving you a room thing and I was genuinely afraid to go back outside (it helped that the lights were off and it was late at night).
However, the story slowly went as insane as Nelson did.
It was kind of creepy with
the Brotherhood member and the dead astronaut
at first, but the Hidden People didn't make much of an entrance. It started to become clear after that that PA2 was abandoning everything that made the story of Scoggins Erasers, Isaac Davner, and the Hidden People so fascinating--it was set on being a wacky Saturday morning cartoon instead.
I can't tell you how disappointing that was for me. The game had some really funny moments, but they didn't mean anything because the plot they were based around was so weak.
Government conspiracy, Ed Davis the serial murderer, astronauts going insane and randomly kidnapping and killing people...
What was the point of all of it? The Hidden People were the best part of the first game, but they lost their mysterious nature and became
the protagonists suddenly
. They were still my favorite characters, but we didn't even get to see a fitting ending for them.
I would think that Graham and co. loved their characters as much as I do, so the only explanation was that they were rushed. How could they just leave everybody and every plot thread hanging?
Believe it or not I have a lot more to say, but I'll hold off for now. Anyway, someone please explain the action "Nelson's Run" puzzle to me. Also, where were the robot puzzles found in the course of the story?
My ratings are as follows.
Puzzle Agent: 9/10
Puzzle Agent 2: 6/10
Glad I played it and it was worth the money, but it was profoundly disappointing.
Nelson's Run changes only slightly the game pre-ending, nothing significant, just
Nelson is able to get free of the lunar ray, or he must get some help by bigfoot
; if you replay the puzzle sufficient times, there's a nice easter egg of playing it with different characters running instead of Nelson.
The robot puzzles are just bonus puzzles present in Nelson's office.
I get it now, thanks. I also found like some have said winning Lunar Run three times
changes Nelson to Principal Skeleton, three more times is a caveman (named Dank or something), three more times is a cow (maybe from Bone), then the cycle repeats
I also loved the robot puzzles and in general I like a game a bit better now, still not nearly as good as the first one but highly enjoyable. Getting all the Grickle references helped.
My main gripe is that this would have been much better if it had been merged with the first game and sold as one long adventure game. With some very minor editing of the finale of the last game and the intro to this one, it could easily have been one fantastic game instead of one great game and one good game.
Also, needed more creepiness that was so well done in the first game! Played it on a friend's computer, but will still be picking it up myself.
I personally felt there were too much pause between the dialogues, moving of character when you are not able to interact with graphics/your surroundings, where absolutely nothing happens, that makes the game a bit frustrating. I don't know if this is about adding gameplay-hours The puzzles were fun. I kind of liked the first episode a bit more than this one.
So far... (by the looks of it I'm about half-way through) I'm enjoying it. I'm very glad they made Puzzle Agent 2. In fact I wouldn't rank it much below the first game, which I enjoyed greatly (like 8/10), given that it's a casual game driven by mystery.
The puzzles themselves are quite easy for the most part, but on the other hand if they were harder I'd find myself being driven to take breaks and come back the next day to figure them out (I did this with the forest maze).
I've also just played the Back to the Future games and there's a bit of puzzle recycling (and sometimes rather easy puzzles) in those too. If that's the only way Telltale can get the games out on time, then fine. Otherwise maybe it's not just the FBI that would benefit from a department of Puzzle Research. Increasing the quality of puzzles would push both games from "good" to "great".
I'm surprised no one has mentioned this at length, so I'll throw it out here.
The character and camera animation in Puzzle Agent 2 seem significantly improved over PA -- there are more subtle facial reactions and gestures incorporated, the performance timing seems sharper, and there's more visually interesting stuff going on in general.
It was most noticeable for me when talking to Martha Garrett at the inn early on, as her repertoire has been expanded quite a bit. But there are lots of nice new things here -- the panning shots in town and in the forest, more closeup shots of characters, more full-body animation, better and more committed acting (animation-wise.) There's also more attention to detail -- things we can look at that don't contribute to the story directly, but enhance the atmosphere.
Like others, I thought the ending seemed a little abrupt as well, but as one of the things I like about the Puzzle Agent series is a certain Twin Peaks vibe, I really can't complain about sudden endings. I've certainly played old-school text adventures that end REALLY abruptly and illogically, I was happy to go with the flow here.
Warning: This contains SPOILERS to the final game.
I really loved Puzzle Agent 2. They got the original actors back, continued right after the first one, old locations, all that stuff. Plus new characters, with my favorite being Jim. What I hated was that some of the puzzles were downright terrible. You have to know alot of backstuff, like how the heck was I suppossed to memorize The first eight digits of Pi? Is this game for kids? Something else I didn't like was that three puzzles cannot be completed until later. Now, this was common in Puzzle Agent 1, (The Gnome Stealing our Stuff) but here, you don't have enough information to complete it, so it just makes you wonder why it couldn't be saved until later. Also, the ending made no sense. I mean I know it's Graham Annable, and you just have to go along with his wierd standards, but I just didn't get it. Anyways, I did like this game, but, sorry...
. The atmosphere seemed to go completely out of the window at that point. The ending was completely unsatisfying, there could have been a a far better bridge if
the Hidden People had helped Nelson destroy the Lunar Ray rather than Bigfoot, although I appreciate the reference
. The fate of most citizens was left badly or not explained at all.
The standard of the puzzles was, as stated before, shockingly low and I enjoyed the overall experience of the first game a lot more. Too much of Puzzle Agent 2 seemed rushed and not thought out as much. It felt like the crude revelation of the truth behind the first game with a few nice new ideas (Korka, Professor) but the secrets really weren't that shocking to me, and I felt as though the Grickle style should leave the truth behind the phenomenon unanswered.
Lastly, there's one plot point that makes no sense -
how did Nelson get back to the hotel after being captured by the Astronauts???
Was anyone else bothered by the lossy speech audio? I don't understand why game developers settle for this, when they lavish such attention on the visuals. Audio is hugely important to me, and it's constantly distracting when it sounds hissy and overcompressed.
I finally had the time to play this through a second time and really soak in all the details. Just a great game.
Starting with the negative comments: Some of the puzzles weren't satisfactory for me. A lot has been said about the coins and the pi-puzzle. I didn't like them, but at least they were optional. I also really don't like number sequences in general, but that's mostly because I have always been embarrasingly bad at them.
The good stuff: Everyting else, pretty much. Loved where the story took us. I know some people didn't like the weirdness of the last half of the game. I do agree that all the answers seem to come a bit too quickly, but I loved all of it. It pretty much turned into Idle Thumbs the Game™. The animation really got improved, like gamingafter40 said. Presentation-wise this game was top-notch. I loved the little detail that the puzzles solved before and after your deal with Ingraham still use the Puzzle Agent 1 stamps. All in all, there where lots of little details I liked, and the voice acting, humor, story and presentation were all perfect. If I have to show someone the best that Telltale has to offer, I would probably show them Devil's Playhouse and the two Puzzle Agent games (and probably ToMI after that).
Favorite moments:
The beginning on the roof.
The milkshake scene.
Your first night in Scoggings.
All the bigfoot scenes. Cool dude, that bigfoot.
The Hidden People finally talking to you, and all the scenes that followed. Gnomes in space! Insane Nelson!
Getting rewarded for completing the game with a perfect score. That's something I thought was missing in the first puzzle agent, but getting a few extra puzzles is pretty awesome. I'll never finish that King's Challenge puzzle though (although I am expecting some sort of weird King's Quest teaser after solving it, so I'll keep trying).
Principal Skeleton! I wonder if he's going to play a big role in Puzzle Agent 3, or if his appearance on the postcard was just an easter egg.
The return of 3D Dank! I love it when old-school Telltale gets referenced like that. Throw Suitbro in there next time.
So yeah, it's pretty obvious that I'm up for Puzzle Agent 3. Especially if that teaser at the end wasn't just a red herring. That character is one of my favorite characters from the Grickle movies.
With my general time constraints on playing games, I'm probably the last person who pre-ordered it to finish, but I finally did. I thought the game was enjoyable, not as tense as the first one. Most of the tension here was thinking, Nelson, you really ought to not be saying these things to this person you just met.
As someone in the U.S. with a pretty good math aptitude, the puzzles were mostly straight-forward. Some of them might be too advanced math-wise for younger players, though. There were a couple of puzzles I had to let run at least once to see how they really worked, because I didn't understand what the instructions were saying, but it was better than the first Puzzle Agent.
I wish there was a way to unlock the bonus puzzles without having to go through again and win everything on the first try. Like I have time for that. Anyone want to post a spoiler thread with screen shots?
I probably enjoyed the first game more because it was creepier and more enigmatic, but this was still pretty damn good. I agree that some of the puzzles were kind of disappointing; not only were a number of them recycled from the first game, but some of them were even recycled and used twice.
Still, I loved it. The story moves at a fair old pace compared to the first game, which not only went very slowly but also explained nothing (that's in no way a bad thing) - the speed of the story in this game can be both a good thing and a bad one. We get a lot of revelations about the goings-on in the previous game, such as what the Hidden People are really up to and why Isaac Davner was 'chosen', but some aspects of the plot are still unexplained (such as
why the astronauts were appearing in people's dreams
) or just don't even make sense (the story regarding the
lunar ray
was incredibly messy). It's possible that some of these questions will be answered in the likely Puzzle Agent 3, but seeing as it's hinted that the next instalment will be set in
the Bermuda Triangle
rather than Scoggins, it's difficult to see how.
I also enjoyed the Grickle references, the cameos this time including
the Sasquatch
,
the Space Wolf
and
Principal Skeleton
.
I'm intrigued to see if the Puzzle Agent series will explain the true nature of
I wanted to like this game. I really, really did. But even though the music was pleasant, the graphics slightly improved and the puzzles slightly more challenging, I just couldn't get past the story.
Don't get me wrong, I kind of liked the idea of the
Lunacy device in the woods
, but it didn't seem to go anywhere. I was expecting it to be the source of madness, maybe
the Hidden People and Astronauts not really being there at all, but rather side-effects of Nelson losing his mind.
But instead it seemed to turn into a cookie-cutter government cover up story. At least all the loose-ends seemed to wrap up neatly by the time it was over.
That being said, the dialogue was still pretty humorous with some darn good one-liners thrown in (Kitimat Incident, anyone?), but overall it just wasn't enough.
Was anyone else bothered by the lossy speech audio? I don't understand why game developers settle for this, when they lavish such attention on the visuals. Audio is hugely important to me, and it's constantly distracting when it sounds hissy and overcompressed.
Yup, 1st part had good audio (speech) quality, but the 2nd got the standard piss-poor-telltale-overcompressed-audio-feature :mad:
The game itself was not as good as the 1st one but still OK (even though I wonder what happened to Dr. Verteckt, I thought he had more to do with the hidden people *verteckt = german for hidden* he just disappeared)
Btw. were the Puzzle Agent games influenced by Twin Peaks... the strange atmosphere kinda reminded me of that awesome series .
just beat PA2. It was awesome. I love the surreal/creepy atmosphere it has. Puzzles were meh. I esp was irritated by movin' blocks puzzles, which are actualy are my favourite kind of puzzles, but the execution of 'em was very low: blocks moved so staggered and there were no visible grid. Sadly, they also were very simple.
Comments
Well, if you paid more than 2 cent for the dictionary it better does.
(Checking the dictionaries I have here, both the English-English and the English-German ones could explain to me very well what a dime is.
Not that I would have needed that during the game as I gained the ability to understand basic English about 20 years ago)
And I think the assumption that you can understand English is a lot more reasonable than that you know 10 digits of pi
- You have a working computer.
- You have a web browser on your computer.
- You have an internet subscription.
Given these premises, it should take about five seconds to fire up your browser and enter define dime into Google.Yes, it sucks to have to look something up to finish the puzzle. Yes, I would have preferred it if the coins were labelled with their values too. Still, let's not make a bigger deal out of it then it is.
It was clear from the start that this game was going to be presented in American English; words like "penny" and "dime" aren't very obscure. It's possible these aren't in your vocabulary, but it I don't think the game designers are to blame for that.
What bothered me was the count of the puzzles. Also, most of them were actually pretty easy (one puzzle was actually a QTE segment in disguise). Though, there were less "drag that to that so that you will get a bigger that" puzzles. They also fell into less repetition with puzzles so I'm aight with that. The story was OH MY GOD magnificent; it was the absurdity and weirdness that Telltale had known to deliver in the good ol' days. The presentation of it wasn't as dramatic as the first one, but it made it up with absolutely gorgeous moments of the climax. The revelation was also tidied up with all the irrelevant loose ends knotted quite well. Brilliant writing.
All in all worths the money and is a respectful conclusion to the first game. Good job guys.
Enjoyed the game EXCEPT for the goddamn bonus robot puzzles! I try and try to solve them and when I do it I've already tried it 5 more times so the game doesn't even celebrate my triumphant moment and instead downright insults me by calling me BORDERLINE.
The story gets really odd and crazy throughout the game. There are nice elements, for example Korka with this stimulating russian bond-girl-touch, but the game doesn't really fit together at whole in my opinion. You meet Korka twice and then she is dropped from the storyline as if the writers have forgotten she is there. Many other characters taken from part one are not developed further in the game.
It seems to me, the writers made 30 minutes brainstorming about what might happen in Scoggins and just sticked to whatever came to their minds without reconsidering. Even after considering the supernatural elements, too many are too far-fetched and not really plausible in my opinion.
Then there are less puzzles in the game than in the first episode (PA1: 37 puzzles, PA2: 33 puzzles). But that would not be a real problem if the puzzles would be really good. The puzzles are less fancy and repeated too often. Even puzzles from the first episode are repeated.
Sometimes the description could be better. (Hey, this is a computer game! Why not implement some visual animation to describe some of them??)
No, really, there are so much really nice and good puzzles out there, and then I have to move furniture (and other things) around or sort pictures chronological several times. It is really a shame. I want to agree with richmcd, too. He complains about the combination of bad puzzles which don't make much sense within the story.
I would have liked more freedom while playing, too. The game is 100% linear and there is for example seldom the possibility to skip a puzzle, continue at another point and then come back to the puzzle. Sometimes when there is only one single hotspot on the screen I wonder why the game is not completely designed as a movie and only interrupts when a new puzzle appears.
I often travelled to other locations where I did not have to go and found nothing new there. Why not include additional information you can get from the people? Why not include easter eggs and/or hidden puzzles, or hints for puzzles which are hidden in another location? Why not give the player the possibility to just do stuff which isn't important for the game but maybe fun? I am thinking about something like the bonus tasks in the Strong Bad episodes, like collecting something which you can find in Nelson's office in the end. There is probably much more you can do to enhance the gaming experience!
Well... some criticism from my point of view because I really expected better puzzles, a good story and some new surprises in comparison to part one. It was fun to play nevertheless, but I hope you will consider the comments from your customers. Thank you.
It's got nothing to do with knowing English. Dime isn't an English word so far as I'm aware (apparently it has French roots), and doesn't have any meaning or use beyond North American currency.
Pi on the other hand is a very basic, very visible pattern and something a person can discover on their own, regardless of their language or cultural origins (unless you come from some culture where studying circles is forbidden).
If you're talking about general knowledge, what makes you think that more people know about North American currency (or even speak English for that matter) than know of Pi?
Edit: Sorry, I missed this one.
I don't know that I'm making a bigger deal out of it than it needs to be. Aside from the first time I mentioned it, I've only continued to talk about it when responding to others to clarify what about the puzzle made for a negative experience (in this thread, anyway).
I'll agree that it's an issue of vocabulary, but the vocabulary is unrelated to the puzzle itself. I'm pretty confident that that wasn't purposeful obfuscation, and whilst the words are probably appropriate to the setting of the game, it seems like things ended up the way they did because it was overlooked rather than intentional.
Also, if this is the biggest criticism people can come up with for the puzzle content, then that in itself is saying something
More constructively, I think there is a problem with the interface. One of the good things about Professor Layton (or rather, the fact that it's on the Nintendo DS) is that you can see all the information at once: the puzzle can be on one screen while the instructions are on the other. Also there was the option to overlay your own notes after the first one, which means the puzzles didn't have to be simple enough to be done in your head. (I'm in favour of tricky puzzles but, like alt-tabbing to do a google search, I think any computer game that makes you reach for a pen and paper has a design issue.)
In Puzzle Agent, you often have to press a button to review the instructions (or the puzzle itself in the case of the logic ones) which is actually pretty irritating. You wouldn't print a crossword with the grid on one page and the clues on the other, would you? Also the font is pretty large, so it seems like you're seriously limited as to how much text can fit on the screen. This is especially true for the explanations of the puzzles: these were some of the most interesting parts of Professor Layton, but often required two full screens to do, with a diagram on one and an explanation on the other. If you're only going to give yourself about four lines of text to work with then it almost seems worth stripping the feature out entirely.
PA1: 8/10
PA2: 5/10
@Jake: You're a mastermind behind Jurassic Park, aren't you? I seem to have a vague recollection.
This bothers me too.
Most of the game was great and the wonderfully unnerving atmosphere was there in spades. But after a certain point it just all stopped for me when we started learning too much. It was an interesting direction to take it, but also cliche.
As far as the puzzles are concerned, they were nice and difficult. Good stuff. No complaints really.
I don't want to see the Hidden People again. We know too much. They're not scary anymore.
I also think the story got a little too cliche because it was appended to the previous game rather than being a continuous flow or story, so the writing couldn't be as tight. It's like adding a sequel to a movie there was supposed to be no sequel for. Not that I'm sure this is what happened but it's what it felt like.
Well, it's a full $10 game; the pre-order price was the same as the current regular price of individual ToMI episodes.
Regarding the ending being confused or seeming rushed, remember that PA1 was a pilot. Graham Annable said around the time of PA1 release that they had the entire Scoggins story already mapped out, presumably for a typical five-episode series. So I suspect the problems stem from having to condense the existing ideas into one episode-length game. The fans wanted a conclusion and they wanted to give us one even if they couldn't support a full series. I have some sympathy that that was a difficult thing to do, story-wise.
Jurassic Park is Joe Pinney, with Mark Darin and a few other guys.
I'm mostly working with a few other guys on Walking Dead right now!
For me, this game looks like a rushed mess, made during the lunch breaks. 4/10
The puzzles were too simple or too strange, poor puzzle design imho, as rushed as the story ending - even though some good ones were present I must admit.
All in all I still love its atmosphere, music and artsy graphics, and some of the new story ideas, but the first Puzzle Agent probably took me to expect too much
I don't know what to expect from Bermuda also, I think Scoggins was a great setting.
I regret not being able to play a full series.
Indeed. 'Tis a shame.
The writing was probably the high point of the game. It was sharp, witty, and oftentimes even hilarious. In the first half of the game at least, Nelson is a fantastic, likable character who is great to play as.
The puzzle were pretty good overall. Probably better than the first game. It was fun to solve them, and for the most part they weren't frustrating or obtuse.
I have to ask though, what is up with the "Nelson's Run" puzzle? Is that really what decides which ending you get? Because it makes absolutely zero sense. Someone please explain it to me, though I don't know if I want to go through the entire game again just to see it.
Also, since I'm American the coin puzzle didn't bother me though the Digits in Space one was a little bit annoying. The Monosaki one at the end practically killed an already dying game for me though. Seriously, you're gonna end the game with a puzzle about the
The story/atmosphere was the big letdown of the game for me, especially since Puzzle Agent 1 became my fifth-favorite game of all time because of its amazingly creepy and darkly funny story/atmosphere. I swear pretty much everything about that story was pitch-perfect. But I digress.
The game felt creepy when you first get to Scoggins, with Bjorn disappearing into the shadows and all. Mrs. Garrett was great with the not giving you a room thing and I was genuinely afraid to go back outside (it helped that the lights were off and it was late at night).
However, the story slowly went as insane as Nelson did.
It was kind of creepy with
I can't tell you how disappointing that was for me. The game had some really funny moments, but they didn't mean anything because the plot they were based around was so weak.
I would think that Graham and co. loved their characters as much as I do, so the only explanation was that they were rushed. How could they just leave everybody and every plot thread hanging?
Believe it or not I have a lot more to say, but I'll hold off for now. Anyway, someone please explain the action "Nelson's Run" puzzle to me. Also, where were the robot puzzles found in the course of the story?
My ratings are as follows.
Puzzle Agent: 9/10
Puzzle Agent 2: 6/10
Glad I played it and it was worth the money, but it was profoundly disappointing.
The robot puzzles are just bonus puzzles present in Nelson's office.
You have to connect the icons in the correct order. The order is given at the begining: Nasa-Moon-Ecuation-Hidden people.
You have to click and link the icons in that order, before they reach Nelson. And you have to do it three times.
I also loved the robot puzzles and in general I like a game a bit better now, still not nearly as good as the first one but highly enjoyable. Getting all the Grickle references helped.
PA1 review (for comparison)- http://joegamesaga.com/v/2011/06/1308447014
PA2 review- http://joegamesaga.com/v/2011/07/1310257805
My main gripe is that this would have been much better if it had been merged with the first game and sold as one long adventure game. With some very minor editing of the finale of the last game and the intro to this one, it could easily have been one fantastic game instead of one great game and one good game.
Also, needed more creepiness that was so well done in the first game! Played it on a friend's computer, but will still be picking it up myself.
I think you are. In which case, I wish to second it!
The puzzles themselves are quite easy for the most part, but on the other hand if they were harder I'd find myself being driven to take breaks and come back the next day to figure them out (I did this with the forest maze).
I've also just played the Back to the Future games and there's a bit of puzzle recycling (and sometimes rather easy puzzles) in those too. If that's the only way Telltale can get the games out on time, then fine. Otherwise maybe it's not just the FBI that would benefit from a department of Puzzle Research. Increasing the quality of puzzles would push both games from "good" to "great".
The character and camera animation in Puzzle Agent 2 seem significantly improved over PA -- there are more subtle facial reactions and gestures incorporated, the performance timing seems sharper, and there's more visually interesting stuff going on in general.
It was most noticeable for me when talking to Martha Garrett at the inn early on, as her repertoire has been expanded quite a bit. But there are lots of nice new things here -- the panning shots in town and in the forest, more closeup shots of characters, more full-body animation, better and more committed acting (animation-wise.) There's also more attention to detail -- things we can look at that don't contribute to the story directly, but enhance the atmosphere.
Like others, I thought the ending seemed a little abrupt as well, but as one of the things I like about the Puzzle Agent series is a certain Twin Peaks vibe, I really can't complain about sudden endings. I've certainly played old-school text adventures that end REALLY abruptly and illogically, I was happy to go with the flow here.
I really loved Puzzle Agent 2. They got the original actors back, continued right after the first one, old locations, all that stuff. Plus new characters, with my favorite being Jim. What I hated was that some of the puzzles were downright terrible. You have to know alot of backstuff, like how the heck was I suppossed to memorize The first eight digits of Pi? Is this game for kids? Something else I didn't like was that three puzzles cannot be completed until later. Now, this was common in Puzzle Agent 1, (The Gnome Stealing our Stuff) but here, you don't have enough information to complete it, so it just makes you wonder why it couldn't be saved until later. Also, the ending made no sense. I mean I know it's Graham Annable, and you just have to go along with his wierd standards, but I just didn't get it. Anyways, I did like this game, but, sorry...
I do not have a vote for Puzzle Agent 3.
The standard of the puzzles was, as stated before, shockingly low and I enjoyed the overall experience of the first game a lot more. Too much of Puzzle Agent 2 seemed rushed and not thought out as much. It felt like the crude revelation of the truth behind the first game with a few nice new ideas (Korka, Professor) but the secrets really weren't that shocking to me, and I felt as though the Grickle style should leave the truth behind the phenomenon unanswered.
Lastly, there's one plot point that makes no sense -
Starting with the negative comments: Some of the puzzles weren't satisfactory for me. A lot has been said about the coins and the pi-puzzle. I didn't like them, but at least they were optional. I also really don't like number sequences in general, but that's mostly because I have always been embarrasingly bad at them.
The good stuff: Everyting else, pretty much. Loved where the story took us. I know some people didn't like the weirdness of the last half of the game. I do agree that all the answers seem to come a bit too quickly, but I loved all of it. It pretty much turned into Idle Thumbs the Game™. The animation really got improved, like gamingafter40 said. Presentation-wise this game was top-notch. I loved the little detail that the puzzles solved before and after your deal with Ingraham still use the Puzzle Agent 1 stamps. All in all, there where lots of little details I liked, and the voice acting, humor, story and presentation were all perfect. If I have to show someone the best that Telltale has to offer, I would probably show them Devil's Playhouse and the two Puzzle Agent games (and probably ToMI after that).
Favorite moments:
The milkshake scene.
Your first night in Scoggings.
All the bigfoot scenes. Cool dude, that bigfoot.
The Hidden People finally talking to you, and all the scenes that followed. Gnomes in space! Insane Nelson!
Getting rewarded for completing the game with a perfect score. That's something I thought was missing in the first puzzle agent, but getting a few extra puzzles is pretty awesome. I'll never finish that King's Challenge puzzle though (although I am expecting some sort of weird King's Quest teaser after solving it, so I'll keep trying).
Principal Skeleton! I wonder if he's going to play a big role in Puzzle Agent 3, or if his appearance on the postcard was just an easter egg.
The return of 3D Dank! I love it when old-school Telltale gets referenced like that. Throw Suitbro in there next time.
So yeah, it's pretty obvious that I'm up for Puzzle Agent 3. Especially if that teaser at the end wasn't just a red herring. That character is one of my favorite characters from the Grickle movies.
As someone in the U.S. with a pretty good math aptitude, the puzzles were mostly straight-forward. Some of them might be too advanced math-wise for younger players, though. There were a couple of puzzles I had to let run at least once to see how they really worked, because I didn't understand what the instructions were saying, but it was better than the first Puzzle Agent.
I wish there was a way to unlock the bonus puzzles without having to go through again and win everything on the first try. Like I have time for that.
Still, I loved it. The story moves at a fair old pace compared to the first game, which not only went very slowly but also explained nothing (that's in no way a bad thing) - the speed of the story in this game can be both a good thing and a bad one. We get a lot of revelations about the goings-on in the previous game, such as what the Hidden People are really up to and why Isaac Davner was 'chosen', but some aspects of the plot are still unexplained (such as
I also enjoyed the Grickle references, the cameos this time including
I'm intrigued to see if the Puzzle Agent series will explain the true nature of
Don't get me wrong, I kind of liked the idea of the
That being said, the dialogue was still pretty humorous with some darn good one-liners thrown in (Kitimat Incident, anyone?), but overall it just wasn't enough.
My only regret is being forever stuck on 24/25 pieces of gum. Now I'm stuck at my desk, it's a bit late now. Ah well.
Yup, 1st part had good audio (speech) quality, but the 2nd got the standard piss-poor-telltale-overcompressed-audio-feature :mad:
The game itself was not as good as the 1st one but still OK (even though I wonder what happened to Dr. Verteckt, I thought he had more to do with the hidden people *verteckt = german for hidden* he just disappeared)
Btw. were the Puzzle Agent games influenced by Twin Peaks... the strange atmosphere kinda reminded me of that awesome series
just beat PA2. It was awesome. I love the surreal/creepy atmosphere it has. Puzzles were meh. I esp was irritated by movin' blocks puzzles, which are actualy are my favourite kind of puzzles, but the execution of 'em was very low: blocks moved so staggered and there were no visible grid. Sadly, they also were very simple.