POSTED 27/10/12


PROFESSOR LAYTON AND THE MIRACLE MASK

Nintendo
3DS

It was the last week of the Christmas term, and all the girls at Gaylands School were looking forward to the Christmas hols. Anne sat down at the breakfast table and picked up a letter addressed to her...

Oh, piffity-blast, horrid balderdashic poppycocky piffle, we’re channelling that apparently ghastly sexist, racist Enid Blyton! Still, it isn’t a hugely gosh-inducing shock, as the delicious proper pomp of Professor Layton, his non-awardy assistant Emmy and his ‘gentleman in training’ ward, Pip... erm, Luke, conjures a rather Blytonesque world where everything’s a tad spiffy and lashings of ginger beer most certainly aren’t out of order, they’re jolly-well obligatory!

This fifth adventure in as many years sees the three going mad in Monte d’Or, a kind of posh Las Vegas sitting all neontastic in the middle of a ruddy great desert. Speaking of posh, the transition from DS to the machine with a ‘3’ Sellotaped at the start sees past lush-but-flat vistas eschewed in favour of more rendergasmic, multidimensional ones. It looks bloody decent, too – what!

Some bloke who’s dubbed himself ‘the Masked Gentleman’ is faffing about like a megalomaniacal Jeff Lynne, causing people to turn to stone in exceedingly queer goings-on. Can our gang nut-out enough puzzles, question enough people, dig up enough coins, clippity-clop enough horses, play with enough robots, tend enough shop, gather enough knick-knackery and train a rabbit well enough to cause this dastardly blaggard’s downfall? Well yeah, innit – erm, natch... ahem, why of course!

Controls have been fiddled with – notably you now move a cursor around the top screen by going draggy-pointy with the stylus on the screen where it actually works. Don’t panic (in large, friendly letters) though, as it doesn’t take long to master.

If you found the Professor’s previous jolly japes spiffytastic then you’ll go frightfully doolally over this. It’s simply wizard!

CLICK THIS!



CLICK THIS!