Review: The Evil Days of Luckless John - PC - PC - HEXUS.net

The final verdict

Old-school adventurers may be glad to hear that The Evil Days Of Luckless John involves box-shifting puzzles, not me though – it's one of my personal hates in videogames. The first box puzzle you'll encounter is so lame that you'll immediately know what to do, but still have to spend 5 unnecessary minutes shifting boxes around in order to get to the next section; it doesn't add anything to the game and once again is enough to make a non-smoker reach for a packet of Benson & Hedges.

There are also stealth missions, where you need to sneak past guards who are patrolling the corridors of a prison. It's nothing you haven't seen before: grab a mop and bucket and place it on your head to disguise yourself as the guard walks past and then jump down a manhole, wait for a guard to walk over it and then jump out and rush to the next area. The first example of this type of stealth missions is an extremely slow, drawn out affair and even the end result of stealing the governor's teddy bear and electrocuting it in order to make your escape will only raise a wry smile.

The action sequences are no better, although the shooting scenes are handled well, but running through a sewer fending off the odd rat is as dull as it can get and the driving sequences, despite being a nice break from other tedious parts in the game, hardly get that blood pumping.

The main problem with The Evil Days of Luckless John, aside from never really captivating you in any way, is that the levels of difficulty from scene to scene lack consistency or natural progression, meaning that you may give up on the game before it's had a chance to really kick into gear. Even if you do stick around, you'll get limited enjoyment from this banal adventure.

Pros
Nice graphical style

Cons
Poor control system
Bad camera angles
Boring action sequences
Baffling, uninteresting puzzles

Classic adventuring it is not. The Evil Days of Luckless John is straight into Room 101.

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