Game Reviews

Jules Verne's Secrets of the Mysterious Island

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Jules Verne's Secrets of the Mysterious Island

It's a given that sequel is supposed to be bigger and better than the original, but Secrets of the Mysterious Island takes that all too literally, weighing in at almost three times the size of its predecessor.

Tapping the download button is enough to verify that claim, the 704MB download itself taking a good three-hour tour. This one doesn't end up on Gilligan's Isle, though. It washes ashore on an island filled with good wholesome adventure gameplay.

Fortunately, more has been done to this tap-and-swipe adventure sequel than enlargement alone. Though Secrets of the Mysterious Island adheres closely to the framework established by the original, it does so with a touch more class.

With Mina's rescue helicopter crash-landing back on the island from which she was being extracted, you're tasked with finding a way off. You do this by exploring static scenes with taps and slides of the screen to find interactive items and solve puzzles.

Collecting items is your key task, assimilating them into your inventory and combining them to create altogether more useful objects. It's a gameplay ethic endemic to the genre, but one that has an added level of complexity this time due to the fact that, as well as taking on Mina, some of the time you play as her monkey, Jeb.

The two have different abilities and weaknesses: Jeb can't combine any items, but is lighter on his feet. Mina is, naturally, the brains of the operation and so her role focuses on piecing together and matching up any objects you find. The game is all about puzzle-solving, any questions you solve and challenges you meet invariably leading to another, and another, and another.

This outing, however, doesn't leave you hanging when things get sticky. A nifty link to an official walkthrough gives the odd hint or two that can make the difference between fun and frustration. It's not always thorough, though, occasionally just restating your goal rather than providing a hint in the right direction.

Needless to say, Secrets of the Mysterious Island comes with a huge play area that can be a touch overwhelming at first, and it's not a cop out to look for a helping hand.

One useful thing the guide does do is point out a seemingly small, but nonetheless decisive, bug: feeding Jeb one too many fruits blocks you from continuing later down the line when they're needed to make alcohol. In other words, it stops your game dead.

An oversight, no doubt, but one that has the potential to taint Secrets of the Mysterious Island for those who don't heed the warning.

Nevertheless, this is a follow-up that does everything a sequel should do: subtly building upon what has gone before without messing with what made it so successful in the first place.

Jules Verne's Secrets of the Mysterious Island

Refining the tap-and-slide adventure formula established by the original, Secrets of the Mysterious Island is the model sequel, and an almost peerless iPhone adventure title to boot
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Keith Andrew
Keith Andrew
With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font. He's also Pocket Gamer's resident football gaming expert and, thanks to his work on PG.biz, monitors the market share of all mobile OSes on a daily basis.