Time Gentlemen, Please!

Though it's not as referentially blatant as the previous game, TGP still manages to cram every three-headed cranny with tributes to old LucasArts, Sierra and other adventures. Where it differs though, is that the references are more subtle than last time - we assume the professor's basement being accessible through a Grandfather clock is a Day of the Tentacle reference, as are the numerous jaunts through time, and the extended rodent puzzle, but it's not shoved in your face. There's a choice of WITS, STEALTH and FISTS paths reminiscent of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, but it's used more as a running joke than game mechanic. (Dan and Ben are lucky in that all the things they refer to are being re-released as we speak.) There's even self-deprecating references to their own path-finding, and ridiculous meta-conversations about the scripting and art.

Gloriously, this game isn't just well written and drawn, in an unusual move for an adventure game, it's also entirely logical. I'm not preternaturally good at adventure games, mainly because of the genre's tendency towards pixel-hunting and obscure puzzles, but Zombie Cow has made puzzles that you can work out, if you just think hard enough, and nearly all the interactive bits are easy to spot. The game also features an in-game help system in the obtuse form of Dan, who will offer tips and hints, but only after you've had a damn good try, and item-on-item descriptions normally drop fairly blatant hints about the proper way to use something. In fact, rarely have I come across an adventure game that keeps the balance as far away from frustration or tedious simplicity, and firmly on brain-teasing. If you get really stuck, Dan and Ben are waiting on the Zombie Cow forum to give hints and tips. This is sounding too much like an advert now. Everyone's going to think I'm doing this because I know them. God, I hate Ben and Dan.

Past the wordy stuff, the way the game is presented is second to none - there's a mix of animation and drawing styles in the cut-scenes and credits that evokes old-school LucasArts, and the in-game animation/design is kooky and amusing but rarely disturbing. Meanwhile, the music is a mature mix of cafe jazz and subtley rhythmic plinky-plonky xylophones (no, I'm not a music journalist and never aspired to be, thank you very much) that shifts nicely from scene-to-scene; the sound effects are similarly innocuously cartoony and knowing.

One caveat about the game is that it's bluer than Bernard Manning after the watershed and about as mature as Viz. For example, while writing this my darling girlfriend has just found me trying to hide a dead mouse's rigor mortis-riddled willy beneath a tasteful miniature evening gown before impaling said rodent corpse onto a rocking hula doll to attract a horny live mouse. Her reaction was "eeeeuuugh" followed by "ooh, that music's good". This is not the worst thing that happens in the game by a long way, so this isn't for little kids. Just big ones.

Fat men in suits keep telling us that the PC is dying; grandfathers scare nippers on their knees with tales of adventure games emerging from their crypts in the twilight hours to say "boo". However, as Time Gentlemen, Please! and a million in-form games (Violet, Slouching Towards Bedlam, etc.) prove, big publishers can't produce the best adventures and scripts - even the Telltale titles are clunky and formulaic compared to the anarchistic invention of games like this and the Discworld.