The six episodes are also available for a special price throughout the holidays.

[Source: Relentless Studios]

What I Liked:

• Great Voice Acting, and wonderful stylized graphics

• Puzzles are a mix of easy maths questions, and suitably tough logic puzzles
• Story takes many twists and turns, and keeps you guessing until the end

What I Disliked:

• Unskippable cut-scenes

• Bought individually, the episodes are not great value, but as a whole, they shape up far better. Not much replay value either.
• Humor may not appeal to everybody.

Whilst Playing Blue Toad Murder Files, I was hit with the realization that I certainly wasn’t the target audience for the game. In fact, I was decidedly above the target age range for what is certainly a charming little puzzle game, with mind teasing puzzles combined with a great sense of humor that is decidedly British in execution.

Blue Toad Murder Files is a great collection of puzzles, wrapped in the veneer of an adventure game. You take on the role of one of the key members of the Blue Toad agency, and are dispatched to the village of Little Riddle for some much needed R&R, but of course it would be a rather boring adventure game if all the puzzles involved walking around museums, and getting drinks of tea from the hotel lounge. As is seemingly par for the course, your visit to the town is interrupted by a sudden murder, and of course it is up to you to solve this crime, as only the Blue Toad agency knows how. By solving various puzzles involving such wide varieties of events as mourners at funerals, and organizing books!

The puzzles in Blue Toad Murder Files are a real mix of various maths, logic and shape puzzles, with some words puzzles thrown in for good measure. The puzzles really run the gamut of difficulty, with some of them being extremely simple, but others had me stumped for quite some time. The game does offer the option to give up once you get a puzzle wrong but I never used it, preferring instead to keep trying until I eventually solved them. Once particular puzzle had me utterly stumped for over 10 minutes, and the feeling of euphoria I experienced after having finally solved it was outstanding.

The story of Blue Toad Murder Files takes place over the course of all 6 episodes, with each episode ending on a cliff hangar adding much more impetuous to carry on playing. With each episode clocking in at between 45 minutes to 1 hour, I found that playing the game in batches of 2 episodes way by far the best way to play it.

Blue Toad does have some faults though, with cut-scenes in between puzzles being unskippable. This isn’t such a problem if you’re seeing the cinematic for the first time, but on additional playthroughs in order to achieve trophies you may have missed out on the first time round, I can see this becoming an annoyance.

This brings me to my main problem with Blue Toad and unfortunately it’s a problem inherent to the genre as a whole; that being that the game lacks replay value. For the price being asked for this series of episodic adventure games, the lack of replay value is something of a detriment. Finally, if you are one of the few people having been unfortunately been blessed without a sense of humor, then the game’s witty banter and quirky jokes will likely be deemed ridiculous.

If you enjoy British humor, and love puzzles, then it’s more than likely that you’ll enjoy Blue Toad Murder Files. The games’ quirky nature, combined with the overall pace of the game as a whole make it an easily recommendable purchase. Just don’t expect to return for a second visit once you’ve finished all 6 episodes.

Click Here to purchase Blue Toad Murder Files (The Complete Series) from Amazon.com

Blue Toad Murder Files is a mix of puzzles and exposition. Each chapter features 12 riddles and the players have to find out whodunnit. If you want to see a sample of the gameplay check out our Little Look.

Here are some screens from the remaining 3 chapters.

Availability:
Price: $7.49 | £6.29 | €7.99 | HK$ 78.00
Release Date: February 25th, 2010

What it adds:

• 6 more trophies to earn.
• 12 new puzzles.
• The next chapter in the murder mystery.

In a town that is so quaint, there sure do seem to be a lot of people getting murdered here. Episode 3 picks up where we last left off, and starts off with a bang… well a flame. The Town Hall is ablaze, and in this episode we must find out whodunnit.

This episode introduces a new member from the Blue Toad’s ranks, Watson the dog. He has a nose for crime and eventually help you solve the case. The voice work is excellent as usual. I just love how each character has there own identity. My favorite, the Hotel Manager, makes an appearance As you can guess from previous episode the length of our adventure is about an hour or two. I have actually come around on the idea of the length. It is just long enough to keep my interest for each of the mini stories. As long as the puzzles stay fresh I have no problem with the length of the episodes.

Speaking of puzzles, this episode has probably some of the most challenging to date. There are some great visual puzzles, like putting a broke pane of stained glass back together, but there are also some classic brain teasers. One of my all time favorites from computer science, the N Queens problem, makes an appearance. I remembered the algorithm for this, so it made me feel like I actually learned something in college.

This was by far the best episode yet and I am really looking forward to see how the story turns out. If you have enjoyed the first two episodes, there is no reason to pass up on the third.

This add-on was downloaded for free from the European PSN store during a promotion

After that one month period it will go back up to its normal price. If you are in North America don’t worry… Blue Toad will be coming our way next month.

Availability:
Price: $7.49 | £6.29 | €7.99 | HK$ 78.00
Release Date: December 17th, 2009

What it adds:

• 6 more trophies to earn.
• 12 new puzzles.
• The next chapter in the murder mystery.

Check out the game in action with our Little Look.

If you enjoyed the first episode, you will enjoy this one. More of the same quirky humor and excellent story telling. The puzzles this go around were a little harder, which I actually liked. But even with those harder puzzles, the time you will be playing is roughly the same was last time. So if you blew through it in around an hour or so, it will probably be just about as long. And of course, this episode also ends in the cliffhanger whetting your appetite for the next release. I don’t see anything wrong with dropping some cash on the second episode. Especially if you are down to try out some brain teasers. Check this out sharpish!

The review for this add-on will be up later tonight!

Be sure to check out our review of Episode 1. We will be reviewing the 2nd episode along with making a Little Look for it this week. Sharpish!

What I liked:

• The excellent narration and overall presentation.
• The ability to play with up to 3 other people at once.
• A good mix of different types of puzzles.

What I disliked:

• If you give up the game gives you the solution.
• Each episode is fairly short (An hours worth of play).
• Not much replay value after you beat an episode.

Everyone loves a murder mystery, whether it be a book, a TV program, or a movie. There haven’t been many murder mystery video games, but Blue Toad Murder Files looks to change that. With its episodic format even feels more like an interactive book or TV show than it does a game.

That isn’t the only thing making this feel less like a game, it is presented in a very interesting way. Each episode has 12 puzzles that you have to solve along the way. But before you can get to the puzzles you have to go through the excellently narrated story. All the character’s dialogue in this game is beautifully voiced and I was amazed to see that it is just one person doing all of it. Each character has a distinct personality that comes through at the first moment you meet them. It is not all puzzle, you will get quizzed on the events of the story making sure you are paying attention. But enough of all this I figure you want to hear more about the game.

So you can play this game either alone or with up to three other people. You can all use your own controllers or just pass one around. If you are using separate controllers make sure you are playing with people you trust, since all the controllers can move the cursor around. You can really screw your friends over if you want to. Each player gets a turn to do one of the twelve puzzles per episode. You are graded on how fast you do it and if you had any misses. There is a semi-competitive side game going on if you are playing multiplayer. All of your medals will get added up and at the end of an episode a winner is chosen.

I had fun playing this in both single and multiplayer. But there are a few things that will make playing this more than once kinda of a drag. First off you will know the answers to all the puzzles. The game does nothing to mix it up, meaning they will have the same answers every time. So you can pretty much just memorize the multiple choice answers. I wish it would at least randomize those questions. Also this doesn’t really pertain to a second play-through, but the game will tell you the answer to a puzzle if you give up on it. What is up with that? I gave up on a question on my first play-through thinking, I will just get this one next time. But nope, I was given the answer. I don’t really see the reasoning behind that. Then there is the length, for the 8 euro you are spending you are only getting an hours worth of story. I guess when you look at it as a full game this might look better, but at the moment it seems really short with little to no replay value.

I almost want to say just wait it out and get this when all of the episodes are released. It would probably be cheaper and you will get the full story with no cliffhangers (yes there is a cliffhanger at the end of every episode). But then another part of me is saying, I did have a really great time playing — even if it was rather short. I really enjoyed the voice-work and I am really interested to see where this story goes. I love a good murder mystery and Blue Toad Murder Files fills a niche on the PlayStation Network that I, for one, would like to see more of. So I guess if you like a good murder story or even brain teasers you will want to check this out. Whether you do that now or later is totally up to you of course.

Click Here to purchase Blue Toad Murder Files Complete Bundle(Episodes 1-6 for $26.99) from Amazon.com

If I recall correctly the first two episodes (six in total will eventually be released) will be out next week on EU PSN. Here is a full run-down of the features

• Six separate episodes
• A thrilling cliff hanger at the end of every episode
• Over 90 puzzles, Whodunnits and cross-examinations
• Opportunity to play as one of four unique characters
• 1 – 4 co-operative multiplayer gameplay
• A story of mystery and intrigue

When I asked Helen Jones, PR & Marketing Manager over at Relentless Software, she had the following to say about a US release date.

Blue Toad is only coming to SCEE on 17th December. We will be releasing in North America but we don’t have a release date yet.

We will still have a review up for this game sometime after release though, so check back to see our impressions.