My job as a professional guy-who-writes-about-games-because-he-can't-find-a-mayor-to-smooch convinces any publisher who can get their hands on my address and contact info to mail me every last piece of gaming swag belched forth from their anachronistic, steam-powered gaming mills. Most times these games go in a big bag labeled "not food" to keep the local feral children from attempting to eat the sharp plastic edges.

Occasionally however, on a boring, rainy afternoon, the crushing ennui of my life drives me to randomly snatch a game from the bag, pop it into the nearest receptacle and discover something genuinely novel and entertaining.

Such is the case with Electronic Arts' action/puzzle game Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure.

First, allow me to draw your attention to the title's cover art. You'll notice a charming, elderly Briton clad in his peoples' traditional garb: The bowler cap, the monocle, the teacup so omnipresent as if to be an extension of his arm, and a mustache that I'm convinced is handed out gratis with every purchase of an elephant gun circa 1919.

That's Henry. Henry Hatsworth. You probably gleaned as much from the title, but those of you who managed to score a GED en route to a prestigious career of unemployment and reading The Merc may be wondering what the "Puzzling Adventure" bit is alluding to.

See, it would be too easy for EA to simply drop Ol' Hank in the jungle armed with a rifle and a sword and expect his geriatric Anglican ass to hack his way out, so they mixed things up a bit. Lord Hatsworth must hack like a cursed member of the Belmont clan, no doubt, but he also has to solve puzzles that are something akin to whatever pops out of the birthing canal after a hot night of love between Sega's classic puzzler Columns and PopCap's neo-classic puzzler Bejeweled.

Following the cut, I'll try to explain how this all works and why I want every one of you Nintendo DS owners to put down your various Peggles and Pokémons for a minute and go pick this thing up.

Henry, as is the wont of those members of the English nobility blessed with enough cash to fill a vault specifically designed for McDuckian bathing rituals, is an adventurer. He's heard rumors of a golden suit worn by the most stylish, dashing men in history that has been lost to the inexorable passage of time. Thus, he sets off on a globe-hopping journey to retrieve the various pieces of said suit before his chief rival, Flintheart Glomgold Leopold Charles Anthony Weaselby the Third, can get his hands on it.

It's a matter of pride you see, and no one is more driven by pride than England's would-be AARP constituency.

The plot in Puzzling Adventure is driven by a series of between-level cutscenes in which Hatsworth converses with Weaselby and other foes, as well as his stereotypically bookish ward.

Each conversation consists of standard reams of text at the bottom of the screen as well as vocalizations that could best be described as long strings of gibberish filtered through a delightful English accent. If you thought gibberish was rad before, you'll giggle like mad hearing it spill from the distinguished throats of the game's neo-Victorian characters, slathered in the sort of exotic twang that makes all of us in The Colonies instantly fall in love with even the most snaggle-toothed wretch birthed upon The Motherland's mossy shores.

The preceding 10 paragraphs have all essentially been meaningless, given that I have yet to mention the gameplay. This is where Puzzling Adventure truly demonstrates that EA is on to something huge with this series.

Instead of a single style of play, the game is split into two distinct methods: Standard platforming and puzzle mode.

The majority of your time in Hatsworth's world will be spent leaping through exotic locales, slicing enemies to bits with your sword, blasting them to pieces with your rifle, or avoiding their attacks with gaming staples such as the duck and the double-jump. Once you've killed a foe, its spirit (for lack of a better word), is transported to the Nintendo DS' lower screen, which contains a multi-colored grid of constantly rising blocks. This is your puzzle field.

The problem with the puzzle field is that as the blocks move upwards, toward the screen you're using to navigate Hatsworth's world, the spirits of the foes you've slain will be pushed skyward as well. Once they reach a certain height, these enemies are resurrected, often dropping already-defeated foes right on top of you at the least opportune moment.

To solve this dilemma, you're given the option to tap the "X" button, thus temporarily entering the game's puzzle mode. Doing so freezes the action on the top screen, so you can focus on destroying the enemies you already killed in a more permanent fashion.

Therein you can use the DS' stylus to slide blocks horizontally in an effort to match similarly colored clusters. Matching three or more blocks will cause a row or column to disappear, destroying any spirits trapped within, or unleashing power-ups for use in the upper screen. These range from items that freeze everything in sight, kill your foes instantly, or fill your super meter.

By maxing out this super meter, you're given an opportunity to live the dream of every blue-blooded Briton: Transforming into a gigantic, steampunk, robotic death machine. Like Voltron, Henry's armored form is an unstoppable juggernaut of destruction, doling out pain and suffering to any hapless minion in his way. Unlike Voltron however, Henry's arms aren't made of lions full of whiny teenagers.

Now, considering that these gameplay fundamentals are stretched over a globe-trotting, 15-plus hour adventure, and that the game itself will set you back less than $30, it should be easy enough to realize that Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure ought to become an immediate addition to your handheld gaming library. If that's not enough, then just buy the thing as a favor to me.

I'd like to see EA pump out more quirky games like this instead of endless reams of John Madden-approved football games, homoerotic Army of Two sequels, and Tiger Woods' latest virtual attempts at making golf palatable to people under the age of 700.

Unless you all show this thing some monetary affection, I worry the company might not feel the need.