TL,DR: Surprisingly enjoyable hidden object/point-and-click mix.
In more detail:
The legendary Italian cat burglar "La Volpe" or "the fox" had retired officially, but now he's stolen a priceless artifact once owned by Marco Polo. You play as a journalist trying to figure out why he's returned to his old ways. But maybe things are not as simple as they seem.
Hidden object games often have rather cheesy stories, and while this one's story is more or less cheesy and somewhat predictable (at least once you've played for a while), I found myself actually interested in it and the characters.
Even though I had to suspend disbelief quite often since Off the Record's Italy is jam-packed with secret compartments and wondrous mechanisms. But why not.
There is a lot to do here - many lovingly drawn screens await, and once you discover a new location, you'll usually find a lot of problems to resolve and objects to pick up. There are only a handful of screens at a time, so it should be easy to keep the overview. Nevertheless, that didn't always work for me and I'd sometimes forget which puzzles were still open. But if you ever find yourself in that predicament and don't want to check everywhere again, there is a hint function. Also, the many minigames are on the easier side, but if they're not your cuppa, they are skippable (as has become the norm in HOGs). If that's still not good enough for your taste, even a full walkthrough has been included.
A note on that: I'm not quite sure whether it's always available or tied to the collectibles. There are several collectibles throughout the game, i.e. there is a fox figurine hidden on every screen and then there are some objects you will find in a few locations only, like scrolls (which may be what contains the walkthrough), letters or morphing objects. Since these are optional, they are a nice addition for completionists.
The game has several difficulty levels which determine how fast hints recharge and how much handholding you get. It also offers achievements, though sadly, they are only visible in-game.
Once you've completed the game, there's a bunch of extras such as a bonus game that continues the story, the soundtrack, behind-the scenes info etc.
"The Italian Affair" took me several hours to complete (maybe 4-6 h; the time given on my profile isn't accurate because at times the game was idling in the background and at other times I played offline). Judge for yourself whether that's worth buying it full price or whether you want to wait for a sale.
