Pat & Mat

If you like puzzles-a-plenty then get these two handymen Pat & Mat are definitely going to tickle your fancy.

Armed with little else than a rather bad dress sense, Pat & Mat through your help must solve basic problems such as making some soup to repairing a cuckoo clock. This game is definitely a trip through time to the classic point and click style games you would find on Amiga and some more modern formats. You have to rotate control over both characters as one (Mat) is fine at operating things like switches and manual or mechanical skills to be activated, whereas the other (Pat) is competent at picking up boxes or items. To achieve the results desired (i.e. making soup or repairing an item) you must use your logical thinking processes to solve puzzles and progress onto the next puzzle.

Such a puzzle could consist of fairly unconnected bits and pieces scattered around the room. Using your imagination, you must then try to piece them together in a logical manner to get the end result. For example turning on a switch, then moving the lamp (with the bulb now on) to melt the candle on the table to turn it into just a wick, which could then be used for something else, is one of the possible tasks which you must try to make sense of.

As far as puzzles go, this is extremely taxing and will cause you to wander about the room trying to look at all the objects and figure out just how they interrelate. As previously pointed out, it’s not just putting the various pieces of the puzzle together but also getting the right guy for the job. For example, you can’t use Mat to pick up the candle wick or moving an item, so you will have to put the right person in the right place, doing the right thing to get the right result. It’s all too easy to overlook something when you have so many objects to interact with.

For me, I found the puzzles a little too frustrating and quite repetitive. Granted, the game did provide a good level of challenges to get the old grey matter revved up, but at what cost? In truth, amusement was what ended up being damaged by this repetitive task-mastering. Now I’m sure there’s going to be some people out there delighted by just how devious these tasks are and don’t mind the laborious means to achieve the results but for the general twitching player who enjoy picking up and playing without needing an A to Z of how to do it, then you’ll end up quite frustrated very rapidly.

Overall then, this is definitely one of the most difficult puzzle games for the mobile phone. When you accomplish the first task no doubt you’ll be relieved by the miracle that just happened, but worried by just how many more of these puzzles you have to solve to complete it – simple answer, too many!

Rating 58%

Positives

Very difficult game for the pure puzzle loving folk out there

Quite good graphics

Simple controls and interface

Some mini-games to help keep you focused (should you get that far)

Negatives

Music wasn’t great

For the average gamer you will probably think you’ve just downloaded a game from hell

Repetitive and arduous problem solving antics