AGON (an acronym for Ancient Games of Nations) is a first-person perspective episodic adventure game series for the PC that spans 14 episodes worth of point and click 3D adventure featuring a myriad of characters around the world anchored by interesting puzzles, riddles and board games crafted specifically around new societies and cultures the player meets along the way. For this review we focus on three such adventures entitled "The Mysterious Codex," (the first three episodes of the game packaged together as a retail product by publisher Viva Media) which tells of the world wind adventure of professor Samuel Hunt, who discovers an ancient scroll while working at the British Museum in London that leads him on an adventure that spans the globe - from his place of employ all the way to places like Lapland and Madagascar. The first adventures in this series prove that the adventure game genre isn't dead - it's just being reinvented by folks like Private Moon Studios.

While we don't want to spoil too much of the storyline in the game, the first episodes begin with the good professor working at the British Museum, where he stumbles upon an anonymous letter and some pages from an ancient codex and an ancient artifact that kick starts an amazing adventure around the world to find "the keepers" of a long forgotten board game. To do this he'll need to find a way to break the spells, unravel a series of mysteries and return this ancient game to humanity by having it displayed in the museum he works for. As is the case with mysterious adventures, there is also talk of a horrible doom that faces humanity, but that, like the rest of your adventure, will have to be figured out as you go.

AGON is a return to the classic point and click adventure game, and not the kind that are doctored up with on-screen prompts and other baubles that younger players may be accustomed to. The game is truly and old school adventure, but don't worry - that doesn't mean it's frustrating by any stretch of the imagination. The other key elements of this game worth pointing out are the wonderful cast of characters you'll run into during your journey, the intricate puzzles and games you'll play and -- of course -- the slick 3D environments that players will explore. There's no denying that the game world in AGON is crafted with great care to detail.

When we say classic adventure what we mean is that players will have to pay attention and take notes as they journey through this first adventure. There's no magical automatic journal entries, no magical devices that store knowledge of your adventures, so paying attention and jotting down a clue or two is a must.. On an entirely different front, AGON does allow you to pan the camera 360 degrees to closely examine your environment and the interface works for you not against you and is quite intuitive: the on-screen cursor will change depending on its placement, letting you know if you can interact with the environment, move, take a closer look at something etc.

The concept of these episodic adventures is to provide some bite sized adventures that players can sink their teeth into while at the same time being left wanting more. AGON's first chapters certainly accomplish that, and anyone that is in love with the genre will certainly want to check out each episode as they are released by Private Moon. If you want to try out one of these adventures you can visit www.agongame.com . Viva Media's first release in the series is a good value and will certainly get you started on the path to adventure, but for those wanting to start off slow you can also buy and download each episode separately directly from Private Moon. Either way, the first chapters in this 14 episode adventure series are pretty solid and entertaining. - James Fudge.