Professor Layton and The Curious Village

In the curious village of St. Mystere, townsfolk greet each other with rebuses, lock their doors with sliding puzzles and hide their secrets within brainteasers. When a wealthy baron passes away, his will reveals an elusive treasure hidden someplace inside the village. Now it`s up to Professor Layton to untangle St. Mystere`s riddles and puzzles, find the hidden treasure and crack the case. As Professor Layton, you`ll tackle over 130 puzzles as you unravel the mysteries of the village. Puzzles range from mazes and riddles to logic and sliding puzzles. Fully voiced animated scenes bring the story to life, while the funny and eccentric villagers and the classic, hand-drawn art provide a stylish charm that will appeal to all. Touch Screen controls make working through puzzles a snap New puzzles...

• Alex Smith August 13, 2009 DS

  ****

  Story
  
  A bike courier in the fictional 'Empire City', Cole's story begins by delivering a package. Upon arrival at his destination, he is instructed to open the parcel, revealing a device which immediately triggers a massive explosion leading to the destruction of much of Empire City - Cole the only survivor in the immediate blast radius.
  
  The entire city is locked down, completely isolated from the outside world, save for a warped news broadcast and the occasional food drop.
  
  When Cole awakens, he is greeted with the realisation that the blast has changed him, Cole is able to manipulate electricity. And his power is growing...
  
  In a city under quarantine and in a state of disarray, chaos ensues, gangs form and plagued citizens begin to appear. In a city seemingly lost to the world, Cole may be the only chance they've got.
  
  
  Game play
  
  Quickly we learn that Cole's powers are in their infancy. You begin with a struggle to learn what you're truly capable of. It's a tutorial of sorts that is more of a realisation for both the player - and the character of Cole - than it is a babysitting of the game's controls and actions. It's an innovative introduction to the inFamous world but it's not long before you're in the thick of the action.
  
  
  Getting around
  
  inFamous is about as open-world as it gets. Essentially everything you can see can be explored. No rooftop is off limits, no invisible walls bar you from areas. Certain sections of the city are locked out early on in the game, but they're as a result of this massive blast that's devastated the city.
  
  In a clever way, these are unlocked not by unexplained circumstances or after a certain time/mission frame - but rather, you unlock them. They are part of game progress. Lowering a bridge, reconnecting power and such. Once each borough is unlocked though, there's nowhere you can't reach.
  
  The city itself is daunting to begin with, quite large - and even only starting on one of the three possible areas, you have a tremendous feeling of scale. You are but a small speck of a character, a tiny person in a huge, crumbing world. Thankfully, Cole is adept at free-running and urban exploration - and incredibly fit. So you race through streets like the T1000 and scale the side of a building in moments.
  
  Power cables networked between buildings offer you fast ways to connect between rooftops and elevated train tracks provide even quicker shortcuts around the city, especially later when you unlock the 'grind' abilities.
  
  The one limit you have, the one Achilles Heel and the Kryptonite of Cole's world is naturally, water. Certain death meets a fall into the blue water surrounding Empire City's islands.
  
  There's a tremendous amount of planning that's gone into the creation of the city. It actually functions. Even in its devastated, broken down state, people still roam the streets going about their business, searching for food in garbage cans or racing to their destinations in beat-up cars. Trains eventually operate in the city and in itself, feels like this was once a well-oiled machine of civilisation. Now struggling to stay afloat on the cusp of disaster.
  
  
  Missions
  
  Of course, this city would be nothing without stuff to do.
  
  Story Missions are displayed within the inFamous game world by glowing blue lights dotted around the landscape. Simply walking into them triggers your mission and usually sets about a cut scene story component.
  
  Story missions range from tracking your foes, to protecting friends - and also incorporate rejuvenating the city, fixing infrastructure, and most importantly, bringing power back to Empire City.
  
  See, Cole can't actually produce electricity. He can only manipulate it. So when you venture around the city, now crippled by the explosion, you will encounter much of it in complete darkness, void of lights, power supply and any electricity. This affects Cole's abilities to function greatly.
  
  Suddenly, your vision dims and blurs. He feels drained. And there's nowhere to recharge when you need healing, or your powers need a fresh boost.
  
  
  Missions take you into underground infrastructure, and you work to restore power around the city regularly by zapping power substations back to life. A happy Cole is an electrified Cole.
  
  While the blue halos are what drive you to new areas, unlocks and game progress, there's also yellow lights in abundance throughout Empire City too.
  
  Side Missions are equally as important to your time in Empire City. Each of the three regions within Empire City; the Neon District, the Warren and the Historic District - are subdivided into small sections of control where it's gang factions terrorise the populace and pillage the area. These side missions offer you the chance to take back control over these small sub-sections of each district and make the area safe again for Empire City's honest residents.
  
  
  Graphics
  
  Surprisingly, for its sandbox nature, inFamous doesn't take the immediate graphical hit that a lot of games in this genre often have to succumb to in order to maintain acceptable frame rates during intense action scenes.
  
  Textures are high resolution, models are well detailed and particularly the differing architectural styles between districts are well created. Buildings have a myriad of footholds and grab spots for Cole to scale and then the amazing draw distance as you approach the skyline, coupled with the speed at which you tear through Empire City, with very little pop-in is unbelievably impressive.
  
  The fact that inFamous manages to maintain a solid frame rate for the entirety of the game, no matter the circumstances, number of enemies on screen, fire fights or outlook is a testament to Sucker Punch's development skills. Adding in the fact that it looks amazing while doing so it worthy of great acknowledgement.
  
  
  It is undoubtedly one of the best looking sandbox games to date.
  
  The city itself experiences a day/night cycle which affects lighting, but there is an absence of weather changes. You do however experience environmental changes with fog/haze.
  
  Characters are modelled in great detail and there's some very uniquely designed people you encounter. While the enemies are also very noteworthy with their haunting cloaks, masks and serious demeanour, especially their respective Conduit units, equally as powerful as you in some situations and more than capable of using similar electric attacks, its Cole that receives the best artistic attention.
  
  For each play-through, good vs evil, is almost like playing a completely different main character. His appearance throughout the stories are completely capable of change. The way this has been done graphically is brilliant. Not only do evil acts prove you're evil, but you look evil and vice versa.
  
  Obviously the electrical effects are the show-piece and Cole's powers (and the electrical weapons of your enemies) look very convincing and impressive. Bolts of lightning tear through the area, conducting through adjacent structures and objects, coursing though cars, puddles, people.. The immense power at your fingertips is displayed in such a way that you feel powerful with it. It looks devastating and it is.
  
  Its quite an accomplishment to get it looking the way it does, there's never a moment when electricity hovers or hits an invisible wall or looks unbelievable. Whether you're firing at a car, person, electrifying a train track, or shocking someone walking around in water of a sewer system, it all looks spot on and effective.
  
  The fact that inFamous was able to make Empire City an enormous, quickly-scalable sandbox environment, with rich graphics and special effects is a fantastic achievement.
  
  
  Sound
  
  inFamous lacks a real show-stopping musical score, but it makes up for this with some great special effects. Crackling and popping of electricity, explosions as a result; It shakes the room and pierces your ears. You'd almost believe there was a storm brewing outside when unleashing a Lightning Storm in an Empire City street.
  
  There are some intense action scenes, particularly as you delve into new unexplored areas, devoid of power supply, thick with enemies and turret trucks when all hell literally breaks loose. Cars are exploding and flying through the air every which way, you're zapping enemies with lightning bolts, hurling grenades into the larger packs, summoning a lightning storm to clear a path and generating a power shield to block incoming fire and regenerate battery cores. Its aural bliss while this is going on. Sounds emanating from every speaker around the room, rumbling from the subwoofer. Coupled with constant feedback from your Dualshock 3, you really feel like you're in the midst of the action on screen.
  
  While it misses out on some powerful musical pieces which could have further intensified some key scenes of the story, the in-game sound effects are great.
  
  
  Conclusion
  
  Good ol' Australia was late to the party with this one, so I'm probably preaching to already owners of this title - but nonetheless, if you're sitting on the fence regarding this one, there's no reason to keep waiting.
  
  inFamous takes the sandbox game, gives you additional option and polishes the experience. It gives us a glimpse at what a real, exclusive, open-world next-gen game is all about. Freedom, graphical prestige and fun. inFamous proves we can have it all when it comes to a sandbox title.
  
  The Karma system is one of the best, certainly one of the most genuine experiences in these sort of games. All the way through the story you consider your decisions, weight the benefits versus the fallout and make tough choices. And you see this reflected in the way everyone in the city reacts to you. I did feel at times the system could have been a little more open - you had to be either totally hellish, or completely angelic to unlock the best powers and abilities, but I'm yet to mix and match story choices to see where this takes me fully.
  
  It really is a struggle to fault inFamous with its multitude of option and enjoyable game play. Even the Trophy hunters who will only grab it for another Platinum will immensely enjoy the experience on both mandatory play-throughs.
  
  Not one to miss.
  
  
  
  Game Play: 9/10
  Story: 9/10
  Graphics: 9.5/10
  Sound: 8.5/10
  
  
  Overall: 9/10

• Darren Tate December 11, 2008 DS

  ****

  Excellent puzzler that has the edge over brain training and big brain academy in that it's wrapped up as an adventure game with a proper plotline.
  
  It's a fun game that you can keep coming back to, and it doesn't do your grey matter any harm either. The puzzles can be quite challenging at times, though others can be a little on the easy side - overall it's a good balance.
  
  It's nothing like the Resident Evil games in theme and content, but the approch to problem solving from within the wider setting of a story driven game does draw some similarities for me.