Guard Duty Review

Guard Duty is a retro point and click adventure with the aim being to save the world. With a massive nod to the gaming genre that encourages a generation to use their minds to help create the adventure, Guard Duty has done a decent job to quench the thirst of the point and click fans. It has wonderful hand-drawn characters and scenes; music and sound effects also capture the feel of the old school point and click adventures.

The game spans 2 vastly different eras; the sword fighting, heroic knight era and the futuristic space and advanced technology era. You play as Tondbert, a hapless, down on his luck guard who wakes up hungover and has misplaced his uniform. You must steer Tondbert by pointing and clicking on objects and other characters to progress the story. The game does little to hold your hand, but it is not so difficult that you will get stuck straight away. Well, not in the first Act anyway. Things do get tougher as you proceed through the other 2 Acts as the story unfolds.

Guard Duty has a lot of humour injected into it throughout. Tondbert, being as unfortunate and unlucky as he is, will be stung by bees early on. This affects his speech and so he needs to remedy that situation before he can find his clothes; sometimes you need to take a few steps back before you can go forward. The voice acting in this game definitely tickles the nostalgia funny bone as they use a West Country English accent. There are a couple of references to other games in here and there is probably some that I have missed as well. I’m pretty sure there was a reference to the other famous point and click adventure tales of Monkey Island, while later on there is a very strong reference to Metal Gear Solid.

Although the game varies in difficulty it still is quite short, so you will likely be a little gutted when the adventure ends, as it will leave you wanting a bit more – as all these point and click adventures do. The only gripe I have with the game one I have with all point and click adventures; hidden paths. I don’t just mean hidden as in that’s part of the difficulty; I just mean in some screens it’s not obvious which direction you can move to. I understand clicking on all objects and people to get all the funny comments and the full experience, but clicking all around the screen to (hopefully) move Tondbert over a little bit more so you can move to the next screen can get tedious. Also, the pace that he walks out can become a little tiresome, especially when you need to backtrack.

Conclusion

Guard Duty feels like a blast from the past. The way it is set up and executed, it certainly feels like an old point and click adventure that has been ported. That is testament to the work and effort that has been put into the game to capture that experience. I’m sure this will be a pickup for fans of point and click games that like to adventure with a fair challenge.

This game was reviewed based on Xbox One review code, using an Xbox One console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.