Thanks all!
L4L, I haven't seen Wall-E, I'm very bad at keeping up with the new films.

Great review Rushes, I love this game even though it is causing mucho hair loss through pulling.

I suppose I should not be making comparisons. There is an absolute rave review on one other Forum and an extremely positive one on another. Neither mention any of the serious faults in the game.
I am not talking about the difficult slider puzzles, twitch puzzles and timed episodes. There are certain drawbacks to the basic game play mechanism itself and interface – one only I mention in my “Hits & Help” Forum. (I can elaborate and describe the other faults – but only if anybody is interested).

In the meantime I have had troubles with the game as outlined in my cry for help here in ”Hints“ & Help”. Your help, Rushes, gave me the clue to break my stuckness. MANY THANKS.
IMO, your Review was more balanced and hence better than the 2 Reviews I referred to above..

Please see -
http://www.gameboomers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/602293.html#Post602293

Thank you, harhan.

GREAT Review Rushes!!
Thanks!
This is one I am considering as I love puzzles. how hard are the arcade type mini games.. do they involve timing?
thanks, Marcia

Thanks, Marcia. I thought that the arcade games in Machinarium were very difficult (and tiresome). Yes, they are timed in the sense that you need to respond quickly to what's happening on screen, otherwise boom-splat-wallop, game over and try again. If Machinarium hadn't included these frustrating game-stoppers I might well have ranked it better than I did.

IIRC there is even one which you can't possibly solve using the normal mouse controls - you have to switch to keyboard after which it's pretty easy.

I never used the keyboard in the game. THe mouse worked fine for me.

Ana

Strange. I found that I couldn't crack one arcade puzzle. Maybe it was due to my not so good hand-eye coordination.
So I looked up the walkthrough I found best out of the several available and it advised me as follows.
I then succeeded easily first time.
Maybe the Walkthrough advice is not necessary or even correct.

Harharn3 -- did all the walkthroughs you looked at advise using the keyboard there?

I don't think I looked at the othe walkthroughs about this.

On reflection and as far as I remember - I seem to remember that I found it difficult to get the mouse to the correct positin left/right and then shoot.
It may have been that I hadn't 'learnt' that you only need to clear a path through the middle and not waste time clearing the 2 sides? And hence I would have had no trouble using the mouse.

Unfortunately due to the fact that there are only the ridiculously small number of save slots (6 in all) I can't now return to check this one way or another.
Cheers.

Walkthroughs were not out when I played and I did not find them necessary. I thought the in game clues were brilliant and easy to follow. I had no difficulties in playing at all. Maybe the walkthrough make the solves more difficult then they really are.

Ana

I found a lot of the puzzles very difficult - especially the arcade, platform and timed ones.

My 'echanical' aptitudes and eyesight are not what they used to be so I had troubles.

As far as i remember there was only one sliderpuzzle in M: and it was easy and had a clever twist to it. Nothing to be afraid of, take that from a sliderhater.

My take is the same as Ana's - brilliant in-game clues with clever and, yes, difficult puzzles. I think easy puzzles would have been a detraction from a wonderful game.

However, I did use my keyboard instead of the gamepad for one of the arcade games and it did make it much easier.