What Makes You Tick

By now some games and their respective styles have become staples for the professional, or average, adventure game. Many styles are well loved, and instantly garner a game respect and a general fan base. Such games would be Leisure Suit Larry, Monkey Island, or even Full Throttle, thought to be the best of the LucasArts adventure series. A game which I believe will someday achieve such admiration is What Makes You Tick, an Edward Gorey style adventure game, of medium length, containing many references to more well known and respected games of the same genre, while retaining it’s own style of humor and storytelling. Find out What Makes You Tick in this point and click adventure game.

You are Nathan, a young man sent by his University to deliver a message to an old retired professor. The professor is in GREAT danger from an old enemy, and you must help him protect his inventions and his family from the perils of the mad fiend that seeks to destroy him. Searching for the professor around his residence sets you on a course for adventure, and along your way you’ll meet many crazy characters, and solve many difficult puzzles, in your quest to save the professor from harm. Jump quickly into this humorous LucasArts style adventure.

The music in this game consists of quiet tunes, some spooky and some mysterious, but they all fit into the storyline and atmosphere, while managing NOT to be so creepy as to ruin the intended mood of the game and its unique style of humor. The graphical quality of this adventure is another high point, as it uses 2D graphics in the styles of Edward Gorey and The Curse of Monkey Island, as characters perform on their lifelike Burtonesque stages. The animation is smooth and pretty, with absolutely no lag or choppy frames.

Everything is molded together beautifully with the gameplay. The interface is a verb-coin, in which you hold down the left mouse button to select the Look, Talk, and Use icons with something in the background. The inventory is selected by moving the cursor over the bottom of the game screen. The puzzles in this game are quite challenging, and I admit I had to consult a walkthrough many times. If you like to puzzle yourself and use your brain until it bursts, then this game is right for you. The game itself is somewhat medium length, owing to the puzzles, and even with a walkthrough, it’s a good three or four hours of gameplay. Without the walkthrough, it all depends on how smart you are.

Since the days of the old Sierra and LucasArts glories, people have loved to try their hands at games which made you think and laugh at the same time. What Makes You Tick is undoubtedly one of those games, and a must have for any adventure game enthusiast. The ending to the game, I thought, was brilliant, and left the game open for sequels, which would be welcome, as I would like to see more of the interesting characters. Unfortunately, many others seems to have disliked the ending, and that is too bad. I hope you will enjoy this game as much as I did, and I give it a score of 5 carrots.

Review by: Secret Fawful