Professor Layton Review

February 27, 2008

 

Professor Layton Review

Developer: Level 5
Publisher: Nintendo
Platform: Nintendo DS
Genre: Puzzle, Adventure
Official Site: Professor Layton DS
Release Date: February 10, 2008
ESRB: Everyone
MSRP: $29.99

Review:

Innovation is an interesting topic in the video game industry. We often hear complaints about publishers relying too heavily on sequels that don’t introduce enough new ideas to tried-and-true formulas. On the other hand, some truly new and innovative ideas go largely unnoticed by consumers. Perhaps, then, the success of recent titles like Puzzle Quest and Patapon suggest a new direction for developers. Rather than take risks with unproven design philosophies, it may be best to take successful ideas from different genres and blend them together to create new yet familiar experiences. Professor Layton and the Curious Village does just that. Borrowing the best aspects of adventure and puzzle games, Level 5 creates an experience that is both familiar and refreshing.

As the story begins, Professor Layton and his young apprentice, Luke, are called to the village of St. Mystere to investigate a mysterious will. It seems that Lady Dahlia requires your assistance to recover the Golden Apple, an heirloom that will dictate how her late husband’s fortune will be divided. To find the treasure and solve the mystery of St. Mystere, you’ll explore the streets of the village, talk with the inhabitants, and collect clues. In this way, Curious Village resembles traditional point-and-click adventure games as you use your stylus to move, talk, and search for clues.

Along the way, you’ll find that the villagers are hesitant to cooperate with your investigation unless you first help them solve a riddle. Solving these riddles takes up the majority of your time in St. Mystere, and for good reason. They’re quite difficult. Puzzles range in theme from simple word play and mathematics to involved logic puzzles and obtuse brainteasers. If you get stuck on one problem, you can always come back to it later armed with up to three hint coins that you find hidden throughout the village. There are a limited number of these coins available, but you should always have enough to get you through the most difficult puzzles. You’re also given an unlimited amount of time to solve the brainteasers, as many of them involve computations or scenarios that must be worked out with your stylus on the screen.

Playing through the adventure will take most people about 15 hours, but there is plenty to do once you’ve completed the story. The game has well over 120 puzzles, and you only need to complete two thirds of them to finish the game. You’ll want to explore the village to find hidden puzzles and collect objects to unlock more challenging brainteasers. Nintendo is also offering free, weekly puzzles for download via the Nintendo WiFi Connection, so you’ll certainly get your money’s worth for purchasing the game.

Speaking of value, you’ll notice a consistently high production level throughout Professor Layton. The game’s charming visuals are conveyed through impressive FMV sequences or artful still shots reminiscent of childhood storybook classics. Voice acting, a rare treat for a Nintendo title, is of similarly high quality. Unfortunately, most of the time you’ll find yourself playing with the audio turned down because the music can easily become repetitive and grating.

If you enjoy adventure games for their story or puzzle games for their imaginative brainteasers, Professor Layton and the Curious Village is easy to recommend. As long as you can handle the occasional obtuse riddle, Level 5 has created a great addition to your portable library that’s easy to pick up and play for a few minutes or long stretches of time. They’ve also proven that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to create a unique game experience.

2 Comments | Reviews, Video Games | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by brianfishman

Patapon Demo Impressions

February 26, 2008

Patapon Impressions Header

Patapon is a charming 2D side-scroller from the studio responsible for LocoRoco, another infectious PSP exclusive title. While the visual style is similar to LocoRoco, Patapon’s gameplay mechanics are wholly unique. Those interested in trying it out for themselves can download the demo from the PlayStation Store. Successful completion of the demo allows you to save your progress for use in the retail version of the game and gives you access to an exclusive weapon.

Although Puzzle Quest and Professor Layton stand out as recent successes, it’s not often that developers are willing to take risks and create new genres in this industry. It’s surprising then, that Patapon manages to borrow the best aspects of old genres and create something entirely fresh and innovative. Best described as a rythm-based real-time 2D side-scroller, Patapon truly breaks new ground on the portable system.

While the essential objective of 2D side-scrollers remains the same (start at the left side of the screen, move to the right, repeat), the means with which you do so have radically changed. As a deity, it is your job to guide the Patapon army into battle by beating a ceremonial drum. Different rhythm patterns tell your subjects to perform various tasks like advance, attack, or defend. Chaining these beats using timed presses of the PSP face buttons increases the effectiveness of the command, sending your troops into fever mode. In this mode, accurate timing is more difficult due to increased background noise coming from the game, and this strategy makes for a compelling risk-reward system. As you progress through the story, you’ll collect new troops and various items to equip your soldiers. This mechanic adds role-playing elements and strategy to a game already bursting with new ideas.

At a surprisingly low price of $19.99, it’s likely that many PSP owners will find something to like about Patapon. Unfortunately, the game is not without its faults. Even from the demo, a few niggling issues are apparent. For example, the difficulty curve ramps up fairly quickly, meaning you’ll have to replay a number of stages if you want to be ready for the onslaught of the next level. Furthermore, Patapon is quite possibly the least portable game available for a portable system. Because the gameplay is rhythm based, there is no way to pause in the middle of a level (unless you put the PSP in sleep mode), and you must be listening intently at all times (meaning you’ll probably want to use headphones while you play). Although the PSP’s wide screen is ideal for 2D side-scrollers, Patapon seems like an easy candidate for a downloadable PlayStation Network title on the PS3.

1 Comment | Impressions, Video Games | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by brianfishman

Crash Mode Crashes & Burns

February 20, 2008

Burnout Paradise Header

I’ve never been able to adequately articulate my hatred for Crash mode in the Burnout series, and I feel like I am in a minority of folks who consider the new Showtime mode to be a far superior replacement. For the three of you reading this who are unfamiliar with the games, Burnout’s Crash mode consists of events in which an elaborate traffic jam is set up at one end of a road or intersection. You start out in your car, barreling toward the traffic, and try to cause the most damage possible by driving into other cars, bouncing along the road, and ultimately blowing up your vehicle so that everyone within your blast radius is taken out. In Burnout Paradise, Criterion Games was forced to remove Crash mode as they transitioned into an open-world mechanic for the racer. In its place, Showtime mode allows players to hit both bumper buttons and trigger an explosion that sets your car bouncing down whatever street you find yourself on. The object is still the same – cause as much damage as possible by barreling through traffic. The difference is that, at any given road or intersection, the traffic patterns vary so that you never play the same Showtime event twice.

One of the aspects about Crash mode that people cite for its popularity is that it’s essentially a puzzle game within the driving genre. This argument has never really made sense to me, because Crash mode is most certainly not a puzzle game. In terms of video games, the puzzle genre typically consists of various falling blocks that the player must turn, fit into place, and eliminate in order to prevent the remaining bricks from reaching the ceiling. It is the Sisyphean Challenge of video games – regardless of how many blocks you destroy or how far you progress, there will always be more work to do. A traditional puzzle game is impossible to win. You must simply survive as long as possible and attain the highest possible score before you inevitably fail.

Alternatively, an increasingly popular variety of puzzle game includes titles like Freecell, SuDoku, Picross, or the (amazing and seemingly out of nowhere) Professor Layton and the Curious Village. These puzzles are solvable, and all of the information required to reach the conclusion are presented to you from the outset. The only mechanic common to this subset of puzzle game is logic. If you think clearly and trust your judgment, every single puzzle will yield a favorable solution.

Here, I argue that Burnout’s Crash mode does not fall into either category of puzzle game. While each event is “solvable” by reaching a predetermined high score, you are not presented with all of the necessary information before the game starts. Because there is no way to know the traffic patterns until you reach the intersection, you must try one route, see what type of score that route yields, and then retry the same event, altering your chosen path to try earning a higher score. Therefore, there is no logic involved in this “puzzle” at all. You are simply making somewhat educated guesses and checking to see how far those guesses get you.

If anything, the gameplay in Crash mode is more akin to the stealth genre than brainteasers. Games like Metal Gear Solid or Splinter Cell rely on the player’s ability to guess and check. Making the correct decision about which path to take or how to execute a kill is often the result of trial and error rather than skill and deductive reasoning. Of course, if that’s your kind of thing, then more power to you. I’d just rather spend my time on other genres.

1 Comment | Editorial, Video Games | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by brianfishman

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