Publisher: Wadjet Eye Games
Developer: Wadjet Eye Games
System requirements: 1.5 GHz Pentium 4/Athlon XP 1500+ or better CPU, 64 MB GeForce 2 MX 400/Radeon X300 series or better graphics card, 256 MB RAM, 512 MB hard-drive space, DirectX 9-compatible sound card, DirectX 9
Genre: Puzzle adventure
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: Available now

“There’s a big secret at Dr. Hugo’s Factory for Making Robots. When the inventors aren’t looking, their tiny robots go on big adventures! It all starts when Zander – possibly the world’s most absent-minded inventor – trips over a metal box buried outside the factory. When nobody can figure out how to open it, the robots sneak out and try it for themselves.” Actually, this info from the Puzzle Bots home page pretty much sums up this point-and-click adventure game. Dr. Hugo has hired five top-notch inventors to design robots to sell that do nothing but chores. Not only are they tiny, but they’re also self-aware, so when they’re put in the “robot habitat,” they decide it would be fun to escape and explore their surroundings.

After the introductory cinematic, the first robot to be introduced is Zander’s invention, Hero, who has the ability to pick up things and use them on other things. You get a brief tutorial to teach you how to make him do things, then after another short cinematic, Hero starts to explore his world. The rest of the game follows a similar formula. You are given a cinematic that reveals a bit more of the big secret. Then the humans leave to do other things, giving the robots the chance to break out—again—and embark on another adventure. The robots are introduced at the rate of one per story segment, each with a brief tutorial on how to use them. Every robot is capable of doing only one thing: Ultrabot can push things, Kelvin can heat things with his tiny flamethrower, Bomchelle throws bombs (surprise!), and Ibi can swim underwater and tow things (but only underwater; on dry land, all she can do is roll from place to place). As their adventures outside their habitat get more complex, you have to switch back and forth between them. For example, at one point midway through the game, Kelvin has to burn something to free an object you need. Ultrabot has to push on something to shake the object loose, and Ibi has to tow it into place.

I have to admit that the big draw of Puzzle Bots for me is the humor. Watching the way the robots view their environment with a childlike sense of awe and imagination is very amusing. And then there’s Zander, who’s simultaneously so absent-minded that he really would lose his head if it weren’t attached, and utterly oblivious to the crush one of the female inventors has on him. The first half of the game was just one laugh after another for me, but the narrative falls flat when the game suddenly shifts its focus from the humor to the gameplay (there are laugh-inducing moments after that, but not nearly as many), leading up to the Big Reveal at the end.

The graphics are on par with what I expected; the robots look very much like video game characters, while the rest of the visuals are similar to those from some of the cartoons you see on Nickelodeon, with bright colors and a hand-drawn style. This is probably a deliberate design choice, and I’m not the only person to make that comparison (my neighbor came over once while I was playing the game and said, “Hey, that looks just like something my kids would watch on Nickelodeon!”).

I’m probably not the target audience for Puzzle Bots, which is completely child-friendly. It’s also very short; an adult can play through this game in less than four hours, and even then, at about the halfway point where it starts to focus more on the gameplay than on the interactions between characters, it becomes monotonous. Also, except for the very last puzzle, which has a few dead-end leads, the solution to every puzzle is quite obvious, and the rechargeable hint system only makes the game easier. There are occasional (but rare) graphics glitches, and the music sometimes skips when changing scenes, but overall it’s solidly built and bug-free.

Despite its linear style and short length, Puzzle Bots is virtually guaranteed to bring smiles to even an adult’s face, and it’s perfectly suited for children. Given its low price point (less than $10), I have to give it a tentative “Buy It” recommendation for families with children (especially those who love robots), or for adults like me who grew up with point-and-click adventures (I still have fond memories of Nocturne, Loom, etc.). For everyone else, it still rates a “Play It,” and there’s an available demo that lets you play for an hour, so you can try before you buy.

Our Score:
Our Recommendation: