For those that have not played Ben There, Dan That!, SPOILER ALERT. With that out of the way, I can talk about the premise of the game! You play as Ben and Dan, two guys that tried one day to get their TV reception back using a coathanger. Unfortunately for them, they were teleported into an alien ship through the use of the coathanger. Upon escaping, they found that the world had been taken over by future, evil Ben and Dan. However, through the magic of temporal paradox, the two foes were quickly dispatched. In the process, the future selves had brainwashed the entire planet to do their bidding. In an act of profound stupidity, present Ben and Dan decided to watch Magnum P.I., their favorite show. This caused everyone in the world to watch it, and as the brainwashing hadn't taken into account biological needs, everyone died of starvation. It is in this bleak, human-less world that Time Gentlemen, Please! starts. What a great entry into a light-hearted, comedic adventure game, don't you think?

First things first: graphics and audio. There is no voice-acting, which is not unusual, but it would have lent a lot of humor to the already great wit on display. Sound effects are sparse, but effective. The graphics, however, are anything but sparse. Each environment is a tapestry of highly-stylized objects, each rendered in vibrant, toon-like colors. This is the sort of art style one might see in a great cartoon, not necessarily an adventure game. The animations are choppy at times (such as the walking animation) but it all adds to the charm of the excellently realized art style. The mouth animation is bizzare too, with lower jaws moving straight down in a python-esque style. This is easily one of the snazziest games since Curse of Monkey Island, in terms of 2D animation.

The basics of Time Gentleman, Please! will be familiar to any serious adventure fan. You can perform several actions, such as using an object, talking to someone, examining something, or simply moving somewhere. You also have the ability to "Use Dan" on something, which usually consists of making Dan do the dirty work, such as reaching into an old man's underpants for a map (eugh!) or eating some cake. For an extra laugh, try to use Dan on Ben. Hilarity ensues. Interacting with objects is relatively easy, and unlike some older adventure games, there is no pixel-hunting here. One of the biggest complaints about adventure games gone!

Along with your normal interactions, you also have the standard adventure game inventory. You can collect items from your environment to put in your inventory, which can then be used at a later date on other objects in the environment (such as doors or clocks or robots). Alternatively, you can also combine items with each other. Some of the combinations are truly bizarre, but to avoid any more spoilers I won't discuss them. Sorry! The text for combinations that don't work, though, is very funny. And this brings us to the writing behind Time Gentlemen, Please!

The best part of Time Gentleman, Please! is easily the writing. There is superb humor at work here, which ranges from the derogatory to the surreal. No matter whether the characters are insulting each other or reminiscing about old times, it never gets too serious, which is a great thing in an adventure game. In a way, those that have played the Sam and Max games will feel instantly at home with the writing here. It crosses between the vulgar and clean as well as it crosses between the mundane and fantastic, and you will get plenty of laughs from the little interactions that aren't even necessary.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment in Time Gentlemen, Please! is that it isn't longer. It's not particularly long, but not too short either; think of the adventure games that Telltale is doing, and you'll have a general idea of the length of the game. It feels like it could have gone on just a teensy bit longer, but for $5, there's not much room for complaint. Already, as is, it's significantly longer than one might expect for only $5. There is also the matter of interaction selection. You can right-click through possible actions to do, but it would have been nice if you could use the mouse wheel to scroll through actions. They could have even added a Ctrl + mouse wheel to let you scroll through the inventory without leaving the main screen! It's just little interface elements that are clunky at times. Nothing out of the ordinary, but something that definitely could have been fixed.

Time Gentlemen, Please! is a love song to the old day of adventure gaming. The days when men were men and homicidal rabbits wielded large German guns. With poignant humor and a cartoony art style, those looking to remember times past will not be disappointed with Time Gentlemen, Please! It's also a great entry point to those looking to get into the adventure game genre, as it bypasses most of the old problems and gets straight to the nitty gritty of a good adventure game: superb writing. You can buy the game for a whopping $5.30 through Zombie Cow's website. Want to give it a try first? No problem. There's a great demo available at the same place.

Download the Time Gentlemen, Please! demo right here on Big Download!