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"Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent" reviewed! 01 Jul, 2010 / 8 comments

Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent came out! Yesterday! And I wrote a review of it!

...Well, what are you waiting for?

8

8 Comments

  • Avatar
    Kroms on 02 Jul, 2010, 11:19…
    ...I bought Brutal Legend on day one, it just happened to ship to Jordan a few months later. I finished it aaaaaaages ago. Twice.

    Deathspank: it looks good :( I rave about it.

    Nelson Tethers: Bought and playing. God bless you, my job! I made money.
  • Avatar
    The Tingler on 02 Jul, 2010, 10:53…

    Kroms

    (This coming from someone who hasn't bought Nelson Tethers yet.)



    Or Brutal Legend. Or DeathSpank. Or the other games you regularly rave about. :)
  • Avatar
    Kroms on 02 Jul, 2010, 07:31…
    I think big news game websites like IGN bemoaning originality but still giving every other major a release a 9.8 "it blew our socks off and then it blew our dicks" review (or, in the case of IGN, "IT'LL COCKSLAP YOU SO HARD YOU VOMIT IN PLEASURE") is...pathetic. The guys are hypocrites.

    (This coming from someone who hasn't bought Nelson Tethers yet.)
  • Avatar
    QueZTone on 02 Jul, 2010, 07:02…

    SurplusGamer


    To be fair I didn't make any more of a deal about the Layton influence than ttg themselves do. They acknowledge it and It's clearly worth mentioning for context. My problems with the game weren't that it's a bit likeLayton. It was the implementation and nature of the puzzles I found lacking.



    ohh I'm sorry, I didn't mean you overreacted in your review. I kinda meant reviews like on IGN. But also it strikes me as odd that it's only and just being compared to Layton, as if that's the only puzzle game ever made. :p
  • Avatar
    SurplusGamer on 02 Jul, 2010, 06:49…

    QueZTone

    In a way I find some views towards Tethers a bit overreactive...

    take IGN for example

    IGN

    The differences between homage, inspired by, and outright copycat narrow as you move down the sliding scale. Telltale Games' new Puzzle Agent -- the first of a new pilot program to determine a potential hit series -- is obviously born out of a collective admiration for Professor Layton's awesome DS adventures. And though the desire to emulate a great game is perfectly understandable, Puzzle Agent adheres so close to the Layton formula of narrative-puzzle-narrative-puzzle that it's distracting. Hell, you even search scenes for pieces of gum instead of coins to activate hints.



    You could write a review about any FPS and approach it similarly... Puzzle games are just a genre. And Layton wasn't the first game of this type. 7th Guest was a solid predecessor and even before that games like Castle of Dr. Brain. Nelson Tethers is just a great atmospheric puzzle game that has proven to assist wonderfully in filling the gap in one of the market's underappreciated genres.



    To be fair I didn't make any more of a deal about the Layton influence than ttg themselves do. They acknowledge it and It's clearly worth mentioning for context. My problems with the game weren't that it's a bit likeLayton. It was the implementation and nature of the puzzles I found lacking.
  • Avatar
    QueZTone on 02 Jul, 2010, 05:33…
    In a way I find some views towards Tethers a bit overreactive...

    take IGN for example

    IGN

    The differences between homage, inspired by, and outright copycat narrow as you move down the sliding scale. Telltale Games' new Puzzle Agent -- the first of a new pilot program to determine a potential hit series -- is obviously born out of a collective admiration for Professor Layton's awesome DS adventures. And though the desire to emulate a great game is perfectly understandable, Puzzle Agent adheres so close to the Layton formula of narrative-puzzle-narrative-puzzle that it's distracting. Hell, you even search scenes for pieces of gum instead of coins to activate hints.



    You could write a review about any FPS and approach it similarly... Puzzle games are just a genre. And Layton wasn't the first game of this type. 7th Guest was a solid predecessor and even before that games like Castle of Dr. Brain. Nelson Tethers is just a great atmospheric puzzle game that has proven to assist wonderfully in filling the gap in one of the market's underappreciated genres.
  • Avatar
    The Tingler on 02 Jul, 2010, 02:05…
    The way Telltale felt they HAD to release it in June - literally at quarter to midnight on June 30th - was strange. This is the only game in the series, it's not tied to a particular release schedule, so feel free to stretch the timetable Telltale.

    AlfredJ

    Good review, and I agree with pretty much all of it, but what's going on in that screenshot you used? There are only four possible answers in that Arm Wrestling-puzzle, so how in the world did someone get the wrong answer 4 times in a row?



    HAHAHA I hadn't even noticed that!
  • Avatar
    AlfredJ on 01 Jul, 2010, 20:12…
    Good review, and I agree with pretty much all of it, but what's going on in that screenshot you used? There are only four possible answers in that Arm Wrestling-puzzle, so how in the world did someone get the wrong answer 4 times in a row? :P

    Anyway, I think the game could have used a bit more polish (and I think Telltale thought so too, seeing as how the waited until the very, very last minute to release this game), but I loved the style and atmosphere in the game. I hope we'll get another game soon that's just a bit ouf of Telltale's comfort zone.

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