POSTED 27/5/13


JACOB JONES AND THE BIGFOOT MYSTERY: EPISODE 1

Lucid Games
Vita/PSN

Young Jacob Jones isn’t your typical kid.

He’s geeky, reclusive, and the sort to get picked on by alpha-children anywhere you’d dump him. Which is precisely what his parents, obviously the source of his awkwardness as they’re a tad Planet Odd themselves (not that there’s anything wrong with that, natch), do here – at Camp Eagle Feather, to utilise something resembling wordy nomenclature precision.

He’s also a thinker – another great way to get snot beaten from you. He’s Professor Layton with huge eyes, short pants and a lack of spiffytacular headwear. As such, his game skates almost litigationally close to old Hershel’s exploits. You could say he’s exploiting those exploits. Or you might not bother typing that at all. Or you might, then delete it, then put it back and regret it around 3am (eternal) when you’re amidst the hole part of your typical donut sleep cycle...

Anyway, as pretty as the prettiest cartoony thing your imagination could imagine, the 3D-ish world of Jacob and his abominable friend (who isn’t, as the Abominable Snowman and Bigfoot are quite different creatures whose only real commonality (avoiding the fiction/non-fiction debate, let alone hirsuteness) is a need to shop at Solway, the big man’s store) is one of mystery, and collecting cans...

But, as the more alert may have surmised, this first episode of an ongoing series – hence the teensy price - mostly comprises logic, math and observational puzzles. That’s everything from non-discriminatory pizza dissemination to jigsaws, calculating non-crashy flight paths and channeling Tetris on car boot contents.

It’s ace seeing such a game outside of something beginning with ‘N’, especially such a playfully amusing one, but it’s mostly conundrum humdrum – we’ve seen these puzzles before. The touchy/swipy/we’ve-got-a-touch-screen-and-we’re-gonna-use-it controls can get tiresome, too.

Still, despite owing a debt to somebody older and more English, Jacob Jones isn’t your typical game.

Us misfits must stick together...

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