Return to Mysterious Island is a very good adventure game inspired by Jules Verne's famous novel, and developed by The Adventure Company.  You take on the part of Mina, a solo navigator who ends up on an uncharted, uninhabited island.  She must somehow manage to raise a signal and get help, although her only technology - a mobile phone - can't get a signal.  However, Mina is to find that there are my mysteries to be solved on this island...

Interface

The game is played in first-person perspective, with the landscape divided into different areas, each one of which can be viewed from every angle imaginable.  Just move the mouse around to change your viewpoint, and click on the right places to move to another area or interact with the environment - pick things up, examine them, etc.  The cursor changes depending on whether you can do something with what the cursor is over at the time, and a small icon will come up if certain actions are possible.

The interface works fine on the main screen, though I would have liked the change in cursor to be a bit more obvious when you have it pointed at something that you can use.  Being able to examine everything that can be interacted with would also have been nice, though this isn't usually a particular problem.  There was a bit too much pixel-hunting in the game, which is my main criticism of Return to Mysterious Island, though not to the extent that it ruined the game - just took the shine off a little.

The inventory screen is nicely designed and while the "auto-transfer" screen bit where everything you pick up goes ready to be put into an inventory slot didn't do much for me, later on in the game I suppose it did have its advantages.  There are a few other things you can do on the inventory screen such as access your phone's menu, the main game menu, and your monkey - more on that later.  The key to the inventory screen and in fact the whole game is the way it handles combining items to make new ones - it's pure genius.  Instead of simply using one object on another then another and so on as in most adventure games, here when you combine two usable items the plan for the new item is laid out in a separate bar.  It won't tell you what you need to put in it (unless you've already found out previously), but you can see how many objects need to be combined.  Sometimes it's a bit puzzling, but often you can find the "ingredients list" for various useful things elsewhere in the game.


Scoring and Replayability

The inventory combining aspect of the game is also largely where the scoring system comes in.  Solving certain puzzles earn you points, as does making particular things.  While the game isn't particularly long (I'd hazard a guess at ten hours to complete, though I didn't time it and admittedly there were just a couple of times when I did sneak a look at online hints), it scores much higher than most adventure games for replay value for two reasons; there are a number of things you can do in the game that will increase your score without being entirely necessary to complete the game, and the game itself rewards experimentation.  You can earn points for finding unusual combinations of items that work, and having completed the game with 271 points out of a theoretical possible of 361, it looks like I missed quite a few.  There are also a number of ways to solve different puzzles, and some might score more highly than others.   Some things are actually quite fun to try out just for the hell of it, so I might well come back to this sometime even though I've completed it. 

Some of the puzzles are very challenging, but not unfairly so.  Again the main difficulty with the game was maybe having missed something important on an earlier screen, just not having noticed it was actually there.  However on the whole I think the difficulty level was very close to being spot on.


Aesthetics

The graphics are very nice, not amazing but good quality and very evocative of a beautiful but deserted island.  The screens have something of the quality of photographs to them, but with the 360° views and various animals moving around, it doesn't feel too static.  There are also some good animations.   Most of the animals in the game look realistic, and those that don't look too realistic are quite funny.

The music is subdued but effective, and the  ambient sound effects are excellent.  With very little opportunity to speak to anyone else (the island is deserted, remember?  Though maybe not quite as deserted as it first appears...) you spend a lot of time listening to Mina's voice.  Unfortunately I found her quite annoying, though not all of the time.  Still, it was nice to have a heroine who was not only intelligent but also opposed to violence.


Monkey Madness!

One of the things that this island has no shortage of is monkeys.  Lots of monkeys around, most of them pretty unfriendly and definitely unhelpful.  However there is one friendly and helpful monkey, and once you manage to team up with him, he adds an extra dimension to the game.  Not only can the monkey access places you can't reach yourself, but you can also combine him with inventory objects to create; monkey with a knife, monkey with a gift, and all sorts of other things.  Your monkey, who you name Jep, will become utterly indispensible as you find out at this is no ordinary island...


Overall

I enjoyed playing Return to Mysterious Island immensely.  There was a good variety of puzzles to be solved, a decent story, great item combining system, very nice graphics, and good atmosphere.  The slightly annoying main character and occasional odd puzzle solutions I can forgive.  It's quite replayable which is unusual for an adventure game.  However I don't feel it's quite worth 5 stars because of the pixel-hunting, which can be very frustrating at times. 

Overall it's a very solid game with loads of good ideas, and anyone who likes adventure games will enjoy it.  Thoroughly recommended.

Captain Nemo fans will be pleased to know that he does appear in this game... well... sort of.  You'll have to play it to find out what I mean!


Minimum System Specs
 
OS:  Windows 92SE/Me/2000/XP (and worked fine on Vista)
CPU: P3 800MHz
RAM: 64Mb
GPU: 64Mb
DirectX: 9.0

Tested on:  Packard Bell iPower X9810


Adventure Game Links

Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None" - also by The Adventure Company, though I liked Return to Mysterious Island more.

My Top Ten Commercial Adventure Games


Jules Verne Links

Jules Verne novels:

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Around The World in 80 Days
Journey to the Centre of the Earth
From the Earth to the Moon


Films/TV series based on Jules Verne's novels:

Mysterious Island
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea  
Around The World in 80 Days (film version starring Jackie Chan and Steve Cooghan)
Around the World in 80 Days (mini-series starring Peirce Brosnan)
Journey to the Centre of the Earth

Recommended: Yes