Do you have what it takes to get a review published right here on Kotaku? Steven does, as he slips into a ridiculously oversized top hat.
Yes, that’s right, we’re now publishing reader reviews here on Kotaku. This is your chance to deliver sensible game purchasing advice to the rest of the Kotaku community.
And thanks to the very kind chaps at Madman Entertainment, purveyor of all kinds of cool, indie and esoteric film, the best reader review we publish each month will win a prize pack containing ten of the latest Madman DVD releases.
This review was submitted by Steven Bogos. If you’ve played Professor Layton and Pandora’s Box, or just want to ask Steven more about it (especially since it’s out in Australia next week!), leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Professor Layton and Pandora’s Box (DS)
Professor Layton and Pandora’s Box is the second game to be released in English for the Professor Layton series of puzzlers on DS. This game picks up shortly after the events of the first one, with Layton and his apprentice Luke setting off to discover the secret of the ‘Elysian Box’, a box that reportedly kills anyone who opens it.
Loved:
If it ain’t broke…: The Diabolical Box succeeds in capturing the feel of the first game perfectly. The exploration aspects, the collectable mini-games (such as assembling a camera or, strangely enough, exercising a hamster) right down to the puzzles themselves are all reminiscent of the Layton charm that will be welcoming to newcomers and veterans alike
Plenty to do: I finished the main storyline in about 12 hours, which was a bit longer than it took me to finish the first game, but I haven’t yet touched on any of the bonus puzzles, which include free weekly downloadables, and the super hard ‘Professor’s Challenges’. The puzzles are different enough from the first game, and varied enough in themselves to make sure you will never get bored.
Hated:
Badly worded puzzles: Not sure if this is a fault of the translators, or the puzzle designers themselves, but there were more than a few puzzles in this game that had me teeming with frustration due to their poor word choice. Some puzzles, even with all their hints revealed, made me tear my hair out due to their horrible vagueness.
Overall, there is not much to fault in the new Layton, it is a very solid puzzler, which borrows and extends on the elements that made the original so successful and it finishes in a cut-scene so fantastic, I couldn’t bear to spoil it for you here.
Reviewed by: Steven Bogos
You can have your Reader Review published on Kotaku. Send your review to us at the usual address. Make sure it’s written in the same format as above and in under 300 words – yes, we’ve upped the word limit. We’ll publish the best ones we get and the best of the month will win a Madman DVD prize pack.
Leave a Reply