The Book of Unwritten Tales 2

The Book Of Unwritten Tales series is a traditional point-and-click game, set in a fantasy world with a lot of humour thrown in. The game-play is the tried and tested formula of picking up objects then either: using them, combining them, or giving them to someone in order to make progress.

The original game told the tale of a Gremlin archaeologist named MacGuffin who discovers a book which points to the location of an artefact that can put an end to the war. He gives Ivo the Elf and Wilbur the Gnome separate tasks to visit the arch-mage. After they cross paths, they hire the services of mercenary Nate and his pal Critter to aid them on their adventure. In the end, the unlikely heroes thwart evil and hide the artefact. This game was followed up with a prequel; The Critter Chronicles where the backstory of Nate and Critter was fleshed out.

Personally, I found Wilbur and Ivo much more likeable characters so it seemed a weird decision to choose the two weakest characters for a separate game. Another great aspect about the original game, was that the puzzles were always logical; even if they were a bit silly. The prequel's design was the complete opposite since the puzzles were illogical. This meant it ended up being a case of trial and error, often mindlessly using your objects and hoping you can make progress.

The good news is that The Book Of Unwritten Tales 2 is a return to form; the good puzzles are back, with Wilbur and Ivo being the main two characters. Wilbur now works in the Mage School and is tasked with cleaning up the school before the inspection. There's an election going on, with new character Cybil Van Buren going up against the Arch Mage. Wilbur suspects some foul play leading up to the election so begins to investigate. News of the incident that soon (no spoilers) reaches Ivo in the Elfburrow who then travels to Seastone to help Wilbur. Meanwhile, Nate and Critter are hoping to steal a Genie owned by the Red Pirate. As expected, the character's paths cross and they team up to overcome evil.

The game's length is very impressive, so expect to take around 22 hours to reach the end. The story isn't very strong, just like the other games in the series which I think is the main negative aspect of the game.

The voice acting is very good, so it's always a pleasure to listen to the dialog, but you can skip it by clicking if you wish. As usual, there's loads of jokes based on pop-culture and the game never takes itself too seriously. There was plenty of moments where I literally laughed-out-loud. There's plenty of returning characters from the first game which is nice, but it's not necessary to have played the first game to enjoy this one.

There's a new game engine, so has made the jump to 3D, and can now be played with a controller. However, this is often awkward because the game rarely focusses on the nearest object, so you have to toggle through relevant objects with the right-stick. There's also some problems where the hotspots don't appear, so you have to jiggle your character around until they do. The graphics are very impressive though which is the major advantage of the new engine.

The first time you interact with an object, you are provided with an explanation. If you can pick-up the item, the icon will then change. You can press the X Button on the controller, or space-bar to highlight all hotspots in the scene.

There's a few bugs throughout the game and some areas seem like they need an extra bit of polish. There's a few puzzles where you aren't reminded of salient dialog. For example, the janitor troll asks if you have been jamming coins in a lock. This was vital to do, but he doesn't mention it again when you talk to him, so it's easy to overlook. Conversely, some characters repeat dialog even though it's not important. There's loads of missing dialog where the audio doesn't play at all, occasional dialog that sounds muffled like an effect has been wrongly applied, or a couple of situations where the subtitles don't match the audio. Additionally, there's a few parts in the game where I noticed I had dialog options referring to objects/events I hadn't encountered yet. On a few occasions, I encountered bugs where the cursor disappeared and I couldn't select anything, or the game seem to think I had an item from my inventory selected, when I hadn't.

It would be nice if you could increase the text size a bit. I played on a PC linked to my TV and it seemed a bit of a strain to read the subtitles. It's probably not a problem for everyone though.

Book Of Unwritten Tales 2 is a decent point-and-click adventure. The games length is very impressive, but you could argue this is at the expense of increased bugs in the game. With a smaller scope, the developers could have eradicated the bugs and could have come up with a stronger story. It's enjoyable, and far superior over Critter Chronicles, but it didn't quite live up to the first game.