Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events is a platforming-type adventure game with many secrets, extras, and puzzles. The game begins in your notorious Uncle Olaf's attic with a list of chores you must finish without interrupting Olaf's friends.. From there you have to traverse through many different types of areas, and cross many obstacles such as jumping from mushroom-top to mushroom-top, to walking on stilts through nuclear waste, with your three characters, Clause, Violet, and Sunny. The game is made up of mostly puzzles and minigames. These are your main enemy, but almost every live enemy you fight is a boss battle, from boxing pirates to throwing old food at evil actors to defeating giant spiders. Every once-in-a-while, you will also get to play a minigame, like the side-scroller where you play as Sunny, the baby with a makeshift jetpack.
The graphics are very good for any GameCube game. The rain is realistic yet fantastic, the shadows are very well detailed, and every ounce of light, from rays pouring through a crack in the wall to swinging chandeliers, is all beautifully rendered. The mansion you begin the game in looks very dark and ragged and sad, and seems to kill all hope just being in it. Fairy-tale like forests are very colorful and bright, to the point that it is eerie and spooky feeling.
The sound for Lemony Snicket's is also very well done. The background music is often slow and melancholy and so soft you can barely hear it. This makes eerie scenes all the more dramatic. You rarely catch any flaw in voice acting. It is smooth and flowing, and seldom makes any jerks.
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events is a very good game. It has some replay value due to the secrets and extras, a lot of which is collecting puzzle pieces in each level, which gives you evidence of Count Olaf's evildoings (however, this is optional and not required). It is a good platformer, and a good puzzle game. If you are looking for a puzzle game that is suitable for kids, you should definitely pick this up.
