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Professor Fizzwizzle and the Molten Mystery

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Developer: Grubby Games
Publisher: Grubby Games
Genre: Puzzle & Casual > Logic
Released: May 31, 2007
Players: 1

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- 2007 Casual Game of the Year

- Professor Fizzwizzle and the Molten Mystery Review

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I�"ll let you in on a secret. It�"s not really a secret, but it sounds cooler if I say so: critics prefer bad reviews to good ones. A critic who only writes good reviews is a softie. Their standards clearly are not up to snuff. They�"re just pandering to their market, in the hopes they get cool stuff from their reviewees. Bad reviews, however, are interesting to read and to write. It�"s easy to fill two pages talking about why and how something sucks heinously. It�"s much harder to write a couple of interesting pages wherein you only say positive things about a product. Think about movies. Even Disney can�"t make something where nothing bad happens for 90 minutes.

Anyway, enough stalling. I�"m going to rave now. I�"m going to gush. I�"ll try to make these few hundred words of praise interesting to read throughout, but I know full well it won�"t have quite that same edgy fun as my ripping upon a crap project.

Professor Fizzwizzle and the Molten Mystery (sequel to Professor Fizzwizzle and in the same family as Fizzball) is superb. It�"s about as good a game as you will ever play on any system and at any time. The first was good, and this one is better and I�"m really going to have to try very hard to find a single bad thing to say about it and I�"m probably going to fail.

To start: Professor Fizzwizzle is a puzzler. Your goal is simply to guide the kindly professor and inventor through levels from one teleporter to another teleporter. Along the way you�"ll need to ensure that the Professor can cross all manner of gaps and blockades and dangerous bat-bots that bar his passage.

Like all puzzlers, Professor Fizzwizzle is only going to be as good as the puzzles it presents to the gamer. I�"ve been playing games for a long time now. A good 17 years, at least. I consider myself as much a gaming pro as you can be without actually getting paid for it. Professor Fizzwizzle is fiendishly hard. Can that be my negative thing? That this puzzler is more clever than I? Not really.

The Professor symbolizes a true challenge for the adult gamer. The puzzles here are varied and wickedly tricky, and that�"s on the standard levels. The advanced levels… well… I just can�"t even find the words. But, what makes Professor Fizzwizzle a true wonder is that for all the allure and challenge it presents to the adult gamer, it�"s still geared entirely as a kids game. This may be the first title I�"ve seen that you can really and truly call a game for the whole family.

The Professor and the game are animated again in the same vibrant, crisp sort of cel-shaded animated look as before. The Professor and his enemies are drawn irresistibly, down to awesome little animations of the Professor busting a move if you let him idle on-screen too long. Kid�"s levels, too, are always designed to look like some fun shape, an animal or a vehicle.

The kid�"s level are all very basic. It�"s pretty much always a straight shot from Point A to Point B, but the levels are still complex and fun to look at and will engage little gamers. Each level also opens with a little story about the level that can be read for some flavor.

On the standard and advanced levels, though, gamers will be treated by a wide variety of puzzling scenarios. The Professor�"s obstacles and tools have been expanded this time around. The Rage-Bots from the first game have been replaced by Bat-Bots, which function the same (attack on sight!), except that the Bat-Bots can be found hanging from ceilings. Now in the Professor�"s arsenal are a freeze gun and heat gun, inflatable boxes and barrels and magnets and new inflatable teleporters and bridges. The application of the freeze gun is a bit more versatile than in the first game, and using the heat ray to, dig this, distribute heat among various items on the level makes for some real brain-bending.

All in all, Professor Fizzwizzle and the Molten Mystery is a game that I probably could not recommend to you more. It�"s nearly flawless in its execution. It�"s a faithful expansion of the original that manages to be a perfect kids game and a wicked challenge for adult gamers.

Graphics:
The first game looked great and this is more of the same. The graphics are identical in every way. The animation remains crisp and vibrant and filled with little detail touches that make it a lot of fun to look at.

Sound:

The sound and music in the game are cute, but not exactly the kind of thing you�"ll find yourself grooving around to. There are a variety of tracks for different levels in the game, which is a welcome inclusion. Sound effects are clear and fun. The sound is in no way bad, it�"s just the least standout element of the game.

Gameplay:
Professor Fizzwizzle is a breeze to play. There�"s nothing to it, so there�"s no impediment to gamers of any sort picking this title up. There do seem to be a few more puzzles based on some critical timing of actions than in the first, but that�"s a logical progression of the Professor�"s skills.

Concept:
The concept here is nothing spectacular. It�"s a puzzler. The execution and application of the puzzles, though, is very well done. There�"s some really ingenious puzzle creation at work here, and it�"s pleasing to see a new genre hero emerging. The Prof�"s a real Mario-esque mascot, and you don�"t see many of those anymore.

Value:

$20 is a great price for a game with this kind of polish. Were this coming out of a major development house, you�"d be paying upwards of $40 for this title. It even comes with a level editor, so you can expand your fun even more. There are already 55 levels up for download on the game�"s website.

Fun:
The game is fun to look at, plays easily and is a great challenge. It�"s a game kids can play with their parents. You could even take turns on the easy and hard levels, it�"s seamless to switch between the two sets. A blast.

Overall:
You won�"t find much more of a concrete recommendation than this one. Unless you�"re adverse to kid-friendly games or puzzlers, pick this title up. It will not disappoint.

By: Michael Scarpelli
Posted: Thursday August 02, 2007