The Nintendo DS made a name for itself through the clever use of puzzle games and classic titles, but all the Sudokus, brain-trainers and crosswords in the world proved no substitute for good old logic problems and lateral thinking. Professor Layton stepped in to fill this gap last year and the success of that title has spawned a number of sequels and even talk of a feature-length movie.

The first of these to hit our shores is Professor Layton and Pandora's Box, which manages to build on the success of Curious Village by sticking to the same tried and tested formula with a number of subtle additions.

For the uninitiated, the series is basically a story-based platform through which to present a wide range of brain teasers - over 150 in this case - that vary from the straightforward to the downright infuriating. The game centres around the same two characters from the first title, namely Professor Layton and his sidekick Luke, as they interact with a series of weird and wonderful characters and environments brought to life by an impressive and unique visual style and some fine voice-acting and animation.

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This time around the pair is attempting to solve the mystery of the death of Dr Schrader, who discovered a mysterious Elysian Box rumoured to kill anyone who opens it, and they must visit a range of varied locations to uncover clues.

Not long after embarking on their journey the duo are presented with their first brain-teaser and from this point on the puzzles and intricacies of the mystery at hand come thick and fast. Some of these challenges need to be solved in order to progress and some can be revisited later, with the added incentive of bonus material to unlock as a reward for your persistence.

The story is unravelled by navigating around the various locations with the stylus and in most cases parts of the scenery can be selected to reveal more clues and unveil ‘hint coins', which can be a godsend when it comes to solving the more difficult challenges.

The three ‘hints' available for each puzzle unlock progressively more revealing clues without actually giving away the answer. This is an effective system and, while in some cases you'll still be stumped, setting the game or puzzle aside and revisiting it later with a fresh mind is often the best way to uncover a solution.

Pandora's Box includes some new minigames that also take a logical approach and require a degree of problem solving, and involve rebuilding a camera from its various component parts, trying to get a fat hamster to lose some weight by encouraging it to walk around its cage and coming up with weird and wonderful new flavours of tea using different ingredients.

Despite the apparently bizarre nature of these games, they all fit in well with the general feel of the title and, while some may be cast aside, they do offer what is often a welcome respite from the cranial challenges of the main game.

These, along with a diary of progress and a summary of the current list of mysteries that need to be solved, are easily accessible from the ‘luggage' screen, and added appeal comes from the fact that any previously solved puzzle can be accessed directly so that you can easily challenge family or friends to solve some of the more interesting dilemmas.

While the Professor's second outing doesn't bring anything radically new to the franchise, it's fair to say that there are plenty of legs left in this particular brand of brain-teaser and the engrossing environments and addictive qualities of the game are certainly retained from the original. The combination of a well-scripted storyline and quirky characters is perhaps even more impressive here, and while the puzzles seem a little easier overall, few could argue that the collection doesn't amount to a serious challenge.

Those who consider themselves adept at solving these sorts of problems should find around 15 hours of gameplay here, assuming the main quest is ploughed through fairly quickly without paying a lot of attention to the additional content, so it's fair to say that you're getting a great deal for your money. Fans of the original can expect more of the same and new adopters will have plenty of fun getting involved for the first time.

Despite not bringing anything particularly new to the series, Professor Layton and Pandora's Box is just as fun, addictive and challenging as the original title and is guaranteed to leave you scratching your head for some time to come.