Could Professor Layton beat Dr Kawashima in a fight?

It's unlikely that Professor Layton or Dr Kawashima would ever get in an actual proper fight that involved slapping and spitting. Neither of them seem like men of violence. However, they are involved in a fight more important and meaningful than any trading of fists and heavy blows in a dark alley - they are engaged in the fight to win a priceless Golden Joystick award.

Professor Layton and Dr Kawashima are just two of the games nominated in the Puzzle Game of the Year category at this year's Golden Joystick Awards. To find out the rest of the puzzle games up for a stick of gold, I was going to devise a cunning enigma to decipher. But I didn't. So here they are in an easy-to-read list instead:

  • 3D Picross
  • Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth
  • Arkanoid Plus!
  • Brain Exercise with Dr. Kawashima
  • Katamari Forever
  • LUXOR: Mah Jong
  • Professor Layton and Pandora's Box
  • Scribblenauts
  • Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll
  • World of Goo

Conveniently, you can also see all the Puzzle Game of the Year nominees in video form:

My vote is going to 3D Picross (although my money's on World of Goo). I never thought I could love a game about maths quite so much. But there you go. Puzzling.

If you haven't already, make sure you visit the Golden Joystick Awards voting page and don't leave until you've voted your bloody heart out.

September 30, 2010

Matt Cundy
I don't have the energy to really hate anything properly. Most things I think are OK or inoffensively average. I do love quite a lot of stuff as well, though.