Bureau 13 is something of an anomaly as far as games have been for me, and was not at all what I expected it to be. Ultimately, it had the screen by screen movement of Myst and everything in the game was completely story-related.
If I were to classify this as anything, I'd put it down as a point and click adventure puzzle solving game. The puzzles were fairly simple, and it really doesn't matter what character you are playing, because there is a way for every one of them to solve every puzzle.
..though it might be very different from what their counterparts would do. There are many characters, each supposedly with their own special abilities, combat statistics and other unique traits. Combat comprised of indicating that you were going to attack a particular character and you would be given a semi-CGI picture of the character you had chosen in a dramatic, and sometimes rather exagerated combative posture.
Bureau 13 represents a collection of freaks... ahem, occult specialists, ranging from mech-operator (or lass in a goldfish bowl) to Mandrake the Magician rip offs. These rather stereotypical characters are supposed to go on a mission, in this case to solve the mystery of what happened to the last bunch of yahoos that attempted to ascertain the sudden and not-quite-horrific anomalies that have
started to appear in Somewheresville, America. In the process of the investigation, the agenda includes not leaving ANY traces of having been there at all. Teams chosen from six characters will be sent onward to fix the mess made by the predecessors, who did more than leave traces of their existence. They really drew a lot of attention to themselves. You will be sort of like the clean up crew.
The user is going to be forced to suspend his disbelief for part of the game. The premise of the game states that everything is to be done in super stealth mode, which is laughable once you see what these Bureau 13 agents are wearing...everything from underwear to full mech gear. Virtually all of the costumes scream: "I am over here." Still it is entertaining and gives you a bit of a chuckle.
This is not a five star game, in my opinion, but it wasn't entirely bad either. More role playing aspects to keep it more faithful to the pen and paper game would have been helpful, but it works okay as an adventure game. The choices of characters were nice and the game was overall entertaining.
