Pros:
-Satisfying puzzles.
-Wonderful humour and characters.
-Cute graphics and sounds.
-Bigfoot!
Cons:
-Lack of configuration options.
-Annoying swaying screen effect and blurred edges.
-Individually, each episode is a little brief.
[Review for both Episode 1 and 2]
One day when I was a kid, I was looking for a cheap holiday read in one of Gloucester’s 4396 discount books-that-no-other-shop-wanted stores and came across a book that was so invocative and fascinating that I simply had to have it. Creatures From Elsewhere set my mind alight with the apparent mystery of creatures unknown to science but somehow leaving their mark upon the Earth. The opening chapters centred upon Bigfoot, and Bigfoot foot like creatures. It was marvellous and thrilling stuff. Utter nonsense, but I loved it. I love Bigfoot and all his mates. From Tintin in Tibet to Bigfoot centric X-Files episodes, the whole mythos of this elusive man-ape creature is so engaging that I can’t help but adore the whole Bigfoot culture. So seeing a puzzle game about a Bigfoot mystery appear in the Steam store was a real no-brainer for me.
Jacob Jones is a kid on his way to summer camp at Camp Evil Eagle Feather. He wears a blue bear coat. Already this is a thoroughly charming game. Needless to say, there is a Bigfoot involved and a mystery. This plays out in a very lovely cardboard cut-out style environment with cute stylised character models. It reminded me a lot of Psychonauts, which is one of my favourite games ever so any resemblance, even if just in passing, is fine by me. The story is rather basic, but it makes up for it by having some wonderfully witty dialogue and laugh out loud worthy gags. There are an awful lot of horror referencing tucked away into the largely child-friendly dialogue, some jokes got surprisingly dark in nature (especially one right at the end of episode 2). There are only a handful of characters that Jacob has any real interaction with but the ones that are in place are well voice acted and come with their own little idiosyncrasies that set them apart. Little details such as the rage fuelled Coach and his bulging eyes or one of Jacob’s bunk-mates’ runny nose and chronic snot bubble problem made for some just adorable people. Then there’s the Bigfoot, the star attraction. Biggie, as he’s known, is a lovable furry lump with a friendly demeanour and a joyfully silly dog disguise. Getting the Bigfoot right was essential. Lucid games nailed him.
The meat of the game is in the puzzling. Although there is a world to explore and some folk to chat to, most of the gameplay is devoted to single screen puzzles à la the Professor Layton games on the Nintendo DS. The puzzles are an assortment of logic, sliding block and maths puzzles and will mostly offer a good brain teasing without being annoying. I came across one puzzle I found a bit confusing but that could be just as well down to the fact I’m not so great at maths puzzles. Give me a Sudoku and I’ll probably just draw pictures of hedgehogs on it and run away with my hands in the air and cackling like a maniac. Luckily, my hand wasn’t forced like that in Jacob Jones. With the exception of the maths puzzle I found the puzzle screens to be eminently satisfying and engaging. Sometimes the puzzle instructions could be a little vague on what needed to be done, but everything is presented excellently and more often than not the game of the puzzle comes to you instinctively.
A handy feature is the memo screen that lets you doodle over the screen to keep track of your puzzle progress. It’s a testament to how well made the puzzles are constructed in that at no point did I resort to doodling hedgehogs on the memo screen in frustration. If you do find yourself stuck, there is a hint system that lets you exchange soda cans (that the environmentally minded Jacob has picked up) for a nod in the right direction. Using his phone, Jacob can get either a vague hint from his friends, a more specific push from his brother or a fairly explicit direction from his uncle. It all works well and keeps the game flowing nicely.
I would have liked the environmental interaction to be a bit more developed. There isn’t really much to do in the world. It looks lovely but it serves as little more than a way to link the unconnected puzzles together. It would have been nice to have more to do than pick up soda cans and bother gophers. As basic as the movement controls are, they are still a bit wonky. The keyboard shortcuts for rotating the screen are Q and E but the keys for moving the view around are the arrow keys. This can be done with the mouse but doing both movements at the same time makes your mouse cursor pretty unreliable. The game was originally made for the touch screens on mobile devises but I would have liked more thought given to how the controls work on a PC, or at least to give an option to change the controls myself or use a control pad.
The game does lack configuration options in general. Volume, full screen on/off and resolution are the only options available. This irritated me specifically because I desperately wanted to turn off the damn depth of field which gave the screen a constant blurring around the edges that I found incredibly off-putting. The game is made with the Unreal Engine so tinkering with the .ini files to get the graphics settings you want is usually an option, but even that couldn’t remove the effects I found so obnoxious. Likewise, there was a constant gentle sway to the whole game that seemed entirely unnecessary but I found no way to turn it off and keep the damn screen still.
These are relatively minor quibbles to a game that I had a lot of fun with. I picked the episode one and two pack for a fiver on Steam and got around five hours worth of delightful puzzling. It may be short but I found it to be well worth the price for the amount of fun I had playing it. I’m now looking forward to episode three, assuming there will be one. I could serious go on for far longer talking about how charming it is. Jacob Jones and the Bigfoot Mystery has stomped its way into my heart and rekindled my love of Bigfoot. I love you Biggie.
From [url=http://www.coffeebreakgaming.co.uk/pc-game-reviews/review-jacob-jones-bigfoot-mystery/]Coffee Break Gaming[/url].
