Writings of Mass Deduction

This is a game I’ve passed over again and again, but I finally decided to review it today. A price drop from 400 to 240 Microsoft Points has finally sealed the deal for me with “Bureau – Agent Kendall”.

The game is an impressive feat, a 3D CGI action/adventure game with a mystery to unravel, puzzles to solve, and more. The game has its flaws, let’s call a spade a spade. The game has well-rendered female characters, but less attention to detail in the male characters (IMO which is, I suppose, subjective). It also has some moments which some might consider exploitative, such as one suspect that is always naked/nearly naked when interviewed (though you usually only see the suspect from the shoulders up). This will make it a no-buy for some, and I completely understand that.

What about those who’re more concerned with the gameplay? It’s more “Heavy Rain” than it is “Shenmue”. The game has an interesting system of time management, where each day is split into both daytime and nightime, and the hours in the day are alloted between FBI hours and Agent hours. Unlike a lot of these kinds of games, each action uses up some of your time so you can’t simply skulk around indefinitely without going home to sleep. The game gives you an in-game PDA to track all the threads of research and questioning you’re doing, which helps keep everything straight.

The game’s not terribly long (a few hours before you finish the game’s main case), but long enough given the price and the high production values. I personally would have preferred it had it tried less to look like a soft-core porn movie, and more if it focused on the gameplay as the latter had a lot going for it, but for those who enjoy that (or can look past it) it’s worth the points at 240 MSP.

Here’s what the developer (Twist-EdGames.com) has to say about the game:

“As Agent Kendall, you have been reassigned to work on a special crimes team. Things will never be the same again. Welcome to a new type of adventure / story game.”