I must confess that I usually steer clear of point and click games. Sure, I've played a few over the years, but after Myst I couldn't really find any worthy titles. Maybe it's the development of faster-paced action games with increasingly beautiful graphics and near real-world physics that pulled me away. Or maybe it's just the huge number of them compared to the thinking man's (or thinking woman's) game. Action games are all well and good, but most are somewhat lacking in the requirement of brainpower. I hoped Undercover: Operation Wintersun, the new point and click adventure game developed by Sproing Interactive, would be just what I was looking for; something to give the big ol' pink sponge between my ears a good workout while not being overwhelmingly mind boggling. Did it succeed and still manage to be an entertaining game to someone relatively new to the genre? In many respects yet, but that's not to say it doesn't have problems that keep it from the gaming halls of fame.

About halfway through the war in 1943, the Allies manage to steal plans for what appear to be a Nazi nuclear weapon. You may believe this storyline to be completely untrue, as the Nazis never had a nuclear weapon and nor were they trying to make one, but actually the story does possess some truth. It is known that the Nazis had the capability of creating nuclear bombs and they were researching nuclear fission, but it is still widely debated how far the Nazis got in their nuclear program. If you're interested in the background to this story then watch the movie Copenhagen - it's nice to see a possible-alternate-history themed game that is not completely unrealistic. You play a character named Dr. John Russell, a professor in nuclear physics and after the secret service are given the plans (hidden away in a restaurant menu no less) it's obvious that you will have to zoom off to Berlin to find out exactly what's going on. The only problem is that Dr. Russell is not really spy material and this makes itself evident in this 'spy-thriller' adventure game.

Being a point and click adventure, you have a screen-sized area to move around in and things to click on and interact with. You can left-click anywhere on the ground to move, but there is no run function for your character, which makes movement over large areas tedious. Your character simply walks everywhere - even when hiding from guards he just walks at his normal pace - no sneaking to muffle his footsteps. What kind of spy just walks? This could be deliberate to show that Dr. Russell is not a spy but it gets frustrating and removes much of the tension - you can never get caught by Nazi guards or die. In addition to using the mouse to move, you can also left-click on objects or hotspots as they're known, to examine that object and cause Dr. Russell to comment on what he sees. Clicking on a picture of a Nazi general (who looks extremely like Adolf Hitler) may result in him saying "A picture of some military bigwig.". He's trying to remain undetected behind enemy lines yet he can't stop talking to himself? He definitely needs a few lessons from spy school!

All this dialogue is read well in a clear voice with subtitles in case you miss something and what you get usually gives a clue as to what to do. For example, if a crow is sitting on a branch preventing the branch from being removed then it's fairly clear that you're going to have to find a way of removing the troublesome crow. It's these kinds of puzzles that form the main reason why anyone would buy this game. They're all sufficiently difficult to not be immediately obvious, yet after pondering the problem for a while, taking in the environment around you and clicking on hotspots you start to form a picture of how to solve them. The satisfaction of figuring something out that is quite complex is awesome. Usually it involves a sequence of actions and often something you initially planned returns an "Interesting…but no." from Dr. Russell. However, keep trying, retrace your steps and don't give up.

To help you solve these puzzles, it is essential to interact with hotspots and pick up items. Items are normal everyday things ranging from old newspapers to potatoes; they never look out of place in the levels and are often hidden in other objects like crates or dustbins. Useful items are picked up by placing the mouse cursor over a hotspot and right-clicking. If you can't interact with it then Dr. Russell will reply with a slightly sarcastic comment such as "How?" or "That won't help the mission." Collected items go in your inventory, which is accessed in an ingenious yet simple way: the inventory (a horizontal list of items) is always available but hidden. To open it simply move the mouse cursor to the bottom of the screen and it materialises - just like showing the hidden start menu in Windows. It doesn't sound like much but it means that you are never pulled away from the 'action' to a separate screen, which really improves the immersion. Once items are in your inventory, their use in solving the current puzzle may be immediately known. You can use them on the environment directly by right-clicking or combine them with other items in much the same way. A lot of the time, items collected at one stage of the game will not be needed until a later stage - just because you've picked up a screwdriver from a storeroom doesn't mean it is to be used in that storeroom.

As well as interacting with items and objects, you can also talk to NPCs (Non-Playable Characters), for example an informer called Schmidt. Although this gives you a range of conversation choices, it seems a bit less useful than could be hoped. NPCs rarely give you any clues as to how to solve a puzzle, so you can remain stumped for hours - which can become frustrating, especially with the repetitive comments of your character when you can't do things. The game certainly involves a lot of brainpower, and while it is relatively good there is room for improvement.

Operation Wintersun is not the technological marvel that is expected from modern games when it comes to the visuals. Don't judge a book by its cover though - or a game by its screenshots in this case - as it somehow manages to look better in action than in its still images. You may think all backgrounds are static like the early Resident Evil and Silent Hill games - but they aren't. Lighting casts realistic moving shadows on the ground, snowflakes fall all around you - but unfortunately do not blanket the ground in snow - steam rises from sewer air vents and loose tree branches wobble when touched. It's such a pity that the developers missed the opportunity to place an English gameplay trailer online.

There are quite a lot of characters in the game and fortunately the developers have stayed away from the iconic James Bond style spies, muscle-bound Nazi soldiers and cigar-smoking generals, while ensuring that the characters all look as would be expected for a World War II game. The only bad point about the characters, especially the character you play, is their often bad dress sense!

Where the graphics do let the game down however is in the cut scenes - the characters look like they have been made out of Play-Dough, with thick fingers and skin-tight clothes. Another problem with the cut scenes is the absence of lip-syncing, which looks like a bad dub. To make all this worse, the cut scenes that are not using in-game graphics judder and stutter along at times. When these judders occur, the sound temporarily goes off which, when the judder is over (after about a second) just compounds the lip-syncing problems and can make the story hard to follow. The good news is that the majority of cut scenes take place using the in-game graphics engine with no such unpleasantness. In these, different speakers sound different and are also given different coloured subtitles to make it easier to follow what is going on in three way conversations.

There is music in the game, but it's so quiet that it won't get in the way of your train of thought. It's quite orchestral and perfect for the time period in which the game is set - it blends in so well that I didn't even realise there was any music for the first minutes of play! All the other sound effects are brilliant too - some are caused by your actions while others are just ambient background sounds. Characters' footsteps can be heard as their boots hit stone, guards snore realistically, crows caw and liquid gurgles appropriately as it is poured into a bottle. It's not just these everyday sound effects that are good either; the characters are voice-acted well, with appropriate sounding voices, especially the German characters who have convincing accents even though they're speaking English. One problem I have noticed however is that when you click on a hotspot and interact with it, the phrase that Dr. Russell says is occasionally out of sync with the animation - slightly confusing but bearable.

Operation Wintersun is a lengthy game, but once you're done there's nothing to entice you back - as with any adventure game, although the best in the genre encourage a replay simply because the story is so compelling or (in the case of Sam & Max) funny. It's also worth mentioning that the game apparently has problems running on Windows Vista, so as more people upgrade to the shiny new operating system, more Operation Wintersun boxes will remain on the shelves. However, these problems may be fixed by a future patch - so don't give up hope. A final minor good point is that when installed, the game runs without the CD in the computer - a personal preference of mine.

Undercover: Operation Wintersun is a fine example of a traditional adventure game, with an engaging storyline, challenging puzzles and visuals and sound that combine for a good atmosphere. It's without a doubt the best point and click game I've played in a long time, despite its flaws. Even if you prefer action games, don't dismiss this out of hand; I found the change of pace very refreshing and the puzzles to be quite original and challenging but still enjoyable - so holster your gun or park your race car and step back in time for a more leisurely paced experience - you might just be pleasantly surprised.

Reviewed by Tom Clark for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).