Hermie

What is the Mystery of Scoggins?

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Walker must be masochistic to continue reviewing all the TTG games he already knows he will hate.

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One of the first problems has a more optimal answer that I tried and got punished for. Basically I the one with the papers I answered in a way that it was possible to have 51 flyers make it through town if one of the paths wasn't chosen, and 50 in the others.

Just a bit frustrating to happen right away.

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Walker must be masochistic to continue reviewing all the TTG games he already knows he will hate.

He's a perpetual moaner, he will never be happy

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I saw the quick look and really liked what I saw. I was always interested in the game, just too cheap to give it a go; but a $3 steam sale on Puzzel Agent 1 and I'm in.

As someone who hasn't played any of the Telltale adventure games, how does Puzzel Agent hold up to those?

Anyway, so far so good, love the characters and I'm a sucker for twin peaks style settings.

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Walker must be masochistic to continue reviewing all the TTG games he already knows he will hate.

This is such a myth. He rated many of TTGs highly.

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As someone who hasn't played any of the Telltale adventure games, how does Puzzel Agent hold up to those?

As similar as Professor Layton is to Monkey Island? Puzzle Agent is a bit of an abberation for Telltale. Almost all of their other games are traditional point-and-click style (if not actually point and click) adventure games. They're very well done, but PA is a weird entry point if you intend to check out some of their other wares.

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This is such a myth. He rated many of TTGs highly.

Outside of Strong Bad, I haven't seen him do it.

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Outside of Strong Bad, I haven't seen him do it.

Here's what he's said in response to the critics who claimed his TT Poker review was overly harsh and therefore he hates all TT games:

My reviews of Telltale’s games have been pretty much in line with everyone else who has covered them for PC Gamer. Alec and Richard Cobbett have both reviewed their games along with me for PCG, and given similar marks. Low 50s to high 70s.

I thought the new series of Sam & Max was a massive improvement and often extremely good, and gave rave reviews to a number of the Strong Bad games, covering them a great deal here, including interviewing The Bros. Chap and the MD of Telltale, in a spoof spat between the two parties.

I have been critical of their poor games, because they were poor games. (I was one of very few who did not simply re-review Hit The Road over and over and over, while ignoring the game they were playing.)

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I bought PA2 and now have a PA1 to steaamgift if anyone wants.

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So I finished up Puzzle Agent 2 last night and can confirm it is a great game. I do however prefer the original due to the story and I love the ending of the original, if you didn't like the fairly abrupt ending of the first then you will probably like the second one a whole lot more in terms of story. On the flip-side the puzzles are a whole lot better in PA2 which makes it a more enjoyable to play through. On that note here are some of my thoughts:

WARNING SPOILERS LAY AHEAD

I really loved the Coins in a Box Puzzle at Korka's, it took awhile for me to realize it was in binary but once I did I was really excited because I knew simple binary and it had finally paid off.

Two puzzles I didn't like were creating the formula for Lunacy because I am not a math major and apparently -S cant go at the very end of an equation because it is an "integral"...of course how obvious. Also the very end puzzle were you have to add the number of days in the calender, it wasn't bad because it was supposed to be challenging I just thought it was a little stupid because February doesn't have a set number of days.

On to story stuff, lets just say I wasn't very surprised to see that Video Games Rodkin and Famous Vanaman had some influence on the story. Knowing that can be interpreted two ways and I would say both fit the bill, the story gets a bit out of control with a few to many characters introduced for a 3-4 hour game most of whom play a sizable role for a small period of time and then simply drop out of the plot. But a crazy story can be a good thing and for the most part it is done well.

I do suppose I just like the "Mystery Scoggins" more than the "I know everything about Scoggins Scoggins", although having the gnomes come from the moon and having astronauts killing people is funny I liked not really knowing why the gnomes where there, although that's not the point of PA2 so I suppose I am fine with all the reveals.

Also I could not understand the Lunar Ray Gun thing, I thought it was on the surface of the moon, why do the astronauts have it? What does a solar eclipse have to do with everything? I thought that part of the plot was a little too complicated for my short adventure puzzle game

Lastly what happened to Darryl (Darrel?) he and his brother Darrel (Darryl?) were my favorite characters from the first and he was needlessly killed off in the first 10 minutes and never returned!

I know this sounds like a lot of negativity but it is me mostly just nitpicking and on the whole I loved Puzzle Agent 2 and plan to replay it sometime in the future (probably in the winter). The boys (and girls) at Telltale should be proud.

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One of the first problems has a more optimal answer that I tried and got punished for. Basically I the one with the papers I answered in a way that it was possible to have 51 flyers make it through town if one of the paths wasn't chosen, and 50 in the others.

Just a bit frustrating to happen right away.

It does say that you need to get exactly 50.

I feel like i've had more than my fair share of bugs so far in this game, and some of the puzzles are not great. Expecting me to know the values of American currency, or to know

Pi to multiple places

is just plain not fun. I've been consistantly getting a bug where whenever a puzzle hint is an image part of the image is covered or not loaded in in a white square section, also i've been annoyed at the gum collection being very hit and miss.

It's been enjoyable enough so far, but I really am getting bogged down in flaws.

EDIT: I just hit a literally game ending bug:

I just ripped the mind control ray off the lander and am running to Lake Sven, the puzzle to draw lines starts but the things floating toward Tethers are just black boxes

then the game CTD'd.

Buggy!

Edited by Thompson

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You playing it through Steam right Thompson? If so I would recommend running "Verify Integrity of Game Cache" under Properties, it sounds like you might not have downloaded all the files through the Steam servers, which would make sense because they are getting hit pretty hard right now with the sales.

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Has anyone ever had fun in the "find the next number in a series" puzzles? They're a chore and extremely ambiguous. Especially when they've only got 4 seed numbers.

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I will second (third? fourth?) the frustration with the number puzzles as well as a few others where it seems like you need one try just to discern the behavior of the puzzle itself, and for some reason it still bugs me that if I solve a puzzle perfectly I get like 48 stamps and awesome gold stars but if I use one hint I just get 1. I suppose achivements have conditioned me too much to want to be perfect at everything.

I liked the story very much, thought the voice acting was once again superb, and loved the Thumbs-ish

MOON

fascination in the last half. The first Puzzle Agent was a pretty big surprise fun time for me 7 months ago so I'm glad that the sequel didn't disappoint in any major way. Just a few nitpicks really. Awesome job!

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Finished it. I too have to gripe about the coins in boxes puzzle. As a Canadian, most of our coins are even the same, but I

was not aware that you yanks had a dollar coin. When did that happen?

Also, that maths one at the end I was able to solve, but only because I happened to take a calculus course. I was playing with a coworker watching over my shoulder (she and I have made a habit of tag-teaming the latest telltale games whenever they come out) and she had no idea what the hell an integral was. Pro tip: If you want your game to be accessible, do not require even a intro-level knowledge of calculus to solve its puzzles. That said, I did end up enjoying the game a lot as a whole. I would gripe that it seems like story has now taken full priority over puzzles though. The puzzles seem shoehorned in and at best tangentially related to the story. In PA1, it was a bit contrived but always felt more-or-less justified.

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Just finished it and all I could think was "What the feck?".

What happened to all the other missing people? Were they actually killed by the astronauts, or was that just a crazy theory? Why would the astronauts kill people? How on earth did they survive for so many years out in the forest whilst being insane? What was with the spaceship scene in the first game - or was that meant to be another dream? What was Bjorn trying to cure in Isaac? If Isaac was trying to be cured, why did he lock himself in the factory?

... etc.

The puzzles were okay. I felt that they were simpler than PA1; the only ones that really I found difficult were the ones where I hadn't read the instructions properly. :D

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Hmm... Most of the puzzles were solvable in 10 seconds or so. That meant a certain rythm was established and I just reached for hints pretty quick if I didn't come up with a solution quickly.

Some comments about specific puzzles (some made before):

1) The coins one: too US-centric, kind of, but maybe it's just a distraction. I figured the large one was a dollar, but I was focused on the middle ones and reached for hints before I thought of the solution.

2) The math formula one is not that bad, but then I've taken calculus.

3) The Pi one really stood out as a bad one. It is the only puzzle that requires most people to go out of the game and look something up. I wouldn't consider it bad if other puzzles had such requirements, but it was the only one.

4) The satellites one made it non-obvious which way the beams would bounce off a satellite (thanks to the satellite graphics).

5) The running for the lake with that module-thingie just didn't seem to work

6) the one where you got animals across the river seemed to have some logic issues or bugs. From the description I figured if *two* animals next to each other in the food chain were left together, there would be eating, but for some reason it happened even if 3 were left together.

In conclusion, I prefer the first game

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Just finished the game, I'll agree that the first one was better for the story. The puzzles are still way too easy, Layton is a hundred light years ahead in that department.

Still, the perfect game to spend a Saturday afternoon on the couch. Can't get enough of Tethers screaming at the gnomes!

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