grimjack2's Full Review: Microsoft Pandora's Box for Windows
Alexy Pajitnov, the Russian creator of Tetris, was hired by Microsoft to create a new puzzle game. I feel that someone at Microsoft didn't like the product (perhaps they wanted a smaller quicker playing Tetris like game) because the game never seemed to get released with the proper fanfare that it deserved. This is a shame, because it is a collection of 350 wonderful puzzles, of 10 different types, all utilizing a different piece of classical art based upon one of 35 different regions.
Most of the puzzles are fun, and many could only exist on a computer. Look at the specifics below of Focus Point and Slices to see what I mean. Some puzzles are more annoying than challenging, but the majority of them are very enjoyable.
The artwork is sometimes just used in the background, and sometimes you don't know what it is until you finish the puzzle. The sound and music are very good, but when some puzzles take more than an hour to finish, you will get sick of the music, good or not.
The balance of the puzzles are great. There are very few choke points, since you can work on many puzzles at once. The difficulty grows fairly regularly so that you are being constantly challenged. The in-game tutorial is perfect, and will easily show you how to play each game. Without this visual representation, some puzzles would be very hard for anyone to figure out. If you get stuck on any puzzles, you can 'earn' free passes to get past them. For every ten puzzles you solve, you are given a pass. Also, there are various puzzles that have a time challenge associated with them. If you solve these within the appropriate time frame (I only did about 20% of the time!), then you will be given a bonus pass, or else it will show you the next important puzzle needed to be completed to jump ahead.
Being a perfectionist, I didn't use any of my passes, and only received one hint, in order to finish all 350 puzzles. It was probably 60 hours of my time, but my brain appreciates the exercise.
Here is a breakdown of the ten puzzles:
Focus Point - This puzzle is one of the more enjoyable, and easily the best example of a puzzle that could only exist on a computer. They take a large picture and divide it up into multiple pieces of different sized rectangles. You can move the pieces between the shapes but they became warped when moved to a space that is of a different height and width. To solve it you have to try to determine which size square it fits in, and then try to match similar edges with each other.
Jesus's Strips - Another puzzle I enjoyed. Here you have strips of different sizes that can be rotated either vertical or horizontal and make up the larger picture. This sounds like a simple jigsaw puzzle, but it isn't, because there are actually five separate 'pages' that these pieces are on, and you can only see what is on the other pages after you've placed the piece correctly.
Overlap - This puzzle was one of my favorites, but since there are probably more of these than any other, and because they became more difficult by giving us pictures with redundant patterns, this game became just plain frustrating towards the end. Here you have small pieces that 'overlap' onto a partially complete picture and the other pieces. You rotate and move them around trying to find their proper location.
Outer Layer - This puzzle was very fun, but sometimes only luck let me find the right piece. This is another puzzle I cannot imagine without a computer. You have a rotational three dimensional object in order to 'wrap' the pieces onto. The pieces are spread out into a square making them hard to identify until you place them onto the object. A few times it just became trial and error for some of the smaller pieces.
Slices - Here you have a true three dimensional jigsaw puzzle. The object (usually a statue) has been sliced into three dimensional pieces that you can flip, rotate and move around the field. Only when it is properly attached to the appropriate piece do they join to become another piece.
Rotoscope - These puzzles started out to be some of the most frustrating to me, but they grew on me towards the end. A round segment of a picture is divided into rings that have been sliced into four pieces. You then rotate the rings, and slide the pieces around to form the proper picture.
Find & Fill - This started out to be a really fun puzzle, but then quickly became one of the most frustrating and time consuming. Here you have outlines of shapes lying prone on top of each other. What you have to do is 'fill in' all the spaces until you have finished an outline shape of one of the items on the pictures on the left. However, the pictures on the left are so small that it is pointless to even try to use them as a guide. To make it even more frustrating, they start to rotate the outlines on cylinder or in a circle which just makes it hard to click on them, instead of hard to make them out.
Image Hole - Here you have a large famous picture covered almost completely by black except where moving shapes randomly bouncing around. What you have to do is click on these shapes when they are right over the appropriate shape in the picture. This is made very difficult by not being able to see enough of the picture at times to have any idea what the shape represents.
Lens Bender - This puzzle cannot really be done without a computer, and it shouldn't even be done then! There is a picture cut into multiple objects and put under different sized lenses of various zoom and warp effects. What you have to do is put the object under the right lens, and then drag it over the picture in the middle. What you end up doing is simple trial and error!
Interlock - The last puzzle you are shown. It kind of reminded me of an old game I used to play with a cube broken up into 7 or 9 distinct pieces. Here you have to 'fill' a shape without any of these pieces overlapping. This is very hard to describe, and very hard to do. This was one puzzle that I had to use a 'hint' early on because I hadn't realized from the tutorial that I could flip the shapes.
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