You Can't Spell "Fucking Stupid" without IGN

Greetings.

Sorry for the lack of a post yesterday. Between sick kids, general apathy and Professor Layton's steely grip, I didn't find, or make the time to be with you, my sweet, sweet audience. Will you ever find it in your heart to forgive me, especially on this, the day of St. Valentine? I can only hope you will.

Speaking of Professor Layton, the game continues to impress as only a puzzle/adventure game mash-up can. I know that all adventure games have puzzles in them, however unlike in traditional adventure games where the puzzle is you figuring out how to move a water buffalo off the road with a hex bolt and a dilithium crystal, Professor Layton does away with all of this nonsense and instead just offers some straight up puzzle madness in order for you to continue. Want someone to give you some more info on the rash of kidnappings? Here, solve this matchstick puzzle. On the face of it, it makes as little sense as the puzzles you find in a traditional adventure game, however it's a lot more palatable in this game as, in real life you could probably get that water buffalo off of the road with other things you have in your inventory, or just walk around the damn thing, however in real life if someone doesn't want to tell you something until you solve their damnable riddles, there's not much you can do about it, short of inflicting bodily harm. At least I find it more palatable, and seeing how I'm reviewing it, my opinion is the one that matters. Tee-hee-hee.

Speaking of reviews, thereby getting us to the idea behind the post's title, IGN's review of Professor Layton dropped and it has to be one of the dumbest reviews I've ever read. There is a certain lack of quality I've come to expect from IGN, as I'm sure all of you have, however this takes the cake. The score isn't really an issue, as an 8 out of 10 is perfectly fine, if a bit low in my estimation, it's the reasoning behind the score I have a problem with. Part of this fellow's problem with the game is that it doesn't prevent you from cheating. According to the reviewer, you can answer a question incorrectly and then turn it off and turn it back on so that you basically get a free shot at answering it again. Never mind the fact that multiple choice questions make up about 25% of the questions and that for the other questions that require you to move a matchstick, or enter a numerical answer you could be turning your DS on and off literally dozens of times before stumbling upon the right answer, the fact of the matter is that it's not the developer's job to program in ways to keep you from cheating, especially from cheating in a manner that involved you cutting power to the fucking device. Plus, not only is this person stupid enough to think that he should be kept from cheating, but even his cheating is stupid. You can go online and get the answers to every puzzle as Japan is on their third Professor Layton game, and with the exception of a handful of puzzles, all of the puzzles are the same between the US and Japanese version of Curious Village. Maybe Level should have programmed in a signal that disables any internet connection within a 500 foot radius so that you can't go online and figure out the answer.

I'm the first to admit that reviews are subjective and the game is not completely without fault, however to knock a game because it doesn't prevent you from, or penalize you for turning your DS on and off to get around getting a wrong answer for only 25% of the game's puzzles is patently stupid. If I pulled that shit, Bill would have my balls for door knockers. No wonder publishers have contempt for games journalism, although I'm loathe to call this journalism if this kind of shit is regularly allowed.

Dumbass.

Anyway, enjoy your Valentine's Day. Unless you're single, at which point you should just hunker down and ignore the love struck morons all around you. Tomorrow the roses will die, the candy will melt and they'll go back to hating each other.