My wife and I had mixed emotions about the Mythic Adventures set. On the one hand, we had a great time playing them and genuinely enjoyed ourselves. On the other hand, the games were kind of "out there". Well, two of them anyway. In the Clutches of Hades (Level 1): My wife hit the nail on the head when she said, "You know, if we hadn't have already played 24 of these games, and this was our first one, we never would have finished it." This is the most difficult "beginner" level game you will run across. Even as an intermediate game, it had many challenges. The puzzles have some giant leaps of logic in them. I'm not going to say the logic wasn't there, but it would take a strange individual to make some of the connections. A drunkard's wild hallucinations would have a better chance of solving some of the puzzles than a member of MENSA. It was an odd game. Thank goodness that the manufacturers actually included a hardcopy solution booklet with this set. The only other set that did that was the Star Wars set; the rest make you go look online. We did have to consult the solutions a couple times (mostly for Around the World in 80 Minutes, but one or two here, too). Odd or not, it was fun to play, so I give it 3.5 stars. Professor Noside's Animal-o-Matic (Level 2): Best game in the box. I said it before, and I'll say it again. I think the folks at Space Cowboys put a little more effort into the Noside games, because he's their original character and hence they take more pride in games involving him. Personally, I think he's one of the stupidest characters ever created; but that doesn't change the fact that his games always seem to be more thought out and more polished than the others. James the mouse had a larger role in this one, too (which is a good thing). Not much larger, but enough to be noticeable. The puzzles were fun, they made sense (although sometimes getting from point A to point B took several not-so-obvious intermediate steps), and it was fun to play. A solid 4 stars. In fact, I might even go as high as 4.5; but it was too app-heavy to warrant a perfect 5. Around the World in 80 Minutes (Level 3): As Unlock! games go, this one was a dud. Out of the 27 games that my wife and I have played, this is probably one of the bottom five, or if not, then real close to it. The puzzles were tedious and sloppy, the audio clue was once again incomprehensible (even though I knew exactly what they were trying to do), and the story line was rather disinteresting. The "Where's Waldo" type element that they incorporated into the game was (IMO) stupid. My wife was glued to the solution booklet throughout the entire game... and I have a tough time deciding if we were really playing the game, or "following along" the walkthrough. We were very frustrated with the puzzles, but that actually ended up becoming a sort-of side game for us, like "How much more ridiculous can they make the next puzzle?" I'm going to be generous and give this one 2.5 stars... though I suspect it was my wife and me that made our own fun along the way more so than the game provided.
