Jules Verne’s Secrets of the Mysterious Island, Chillingo’s sequel to the well-received Jules Verne’s Return to Mysterious Island, is now live in the app store. Secrets picks up where Return left off, with Mina’s helicopter crashing back on the island, requiring her once again to fend for herself and continue to explore her surroundings to determine exactly what happened.

Secrets continues to build upon its predecessor, utilizing the same static imagery and point-and-click adventure style. The entire island can be explored for clues and collectible objects, many of which can and must be combined with items in your inventory to accomplish certain goals or further your progress in the game. The most notable difference between Return and Secrets is the increased role and controllability of Jep, who was relegated to secondary status in Return. In the newest installment, you will switch back-and-forth between controlling Jep and Mina. Control of Jep is necessary due to his skill sets that Mina does not possess, namely his climbing ability, his sense of smell, and his ability to communicate with the other monkey inhabitants of the island. Of course, Mina’s ability to manipulate complex tools, swim, and read are skills that Jep lacks, requiring you to alternate control as necessary. Secrets strikes a good balance between the use of these two characters.

Secrets also delves into greater themes of survival, exploration, and discovery, as well as man’s relevance and our responsibility toward nature and the preservation of our world, deep stuff for an iDevice game. Secrets introduces plenty of new puzzles for the gamer to solve, from the simple use of a proper rudimentary tool to social interactions and more technological conundrums.

The 3D graphics exhibit the same wonderful polish and high detail as the first installment. Ambient sounds and a terrific soundtrack serve to pull you into the game and immerse you in world that Mina and Jep struggle to understand. The controls are intuitive and simple to use, tapping to move about and pick up objects. You can drag inventory items to combine and use. iPhone 3GS owners can utilize a bonus feature, whereby the phone’s compass and accelerometer can be used to explore the island. We were unable to test this feature, though it sounds like an interesting option.

Replayability for adventure games tends to be somewhat limited, as once the puzzle has been solved, the same surprise and discovery from your first playthrough is lost. However, the games expected 15 hours worth of gameplay help to justify its $6.99 price tag. Beware, Secrets weighs in at a very hefty 700mb, so you’ll need plenty of space on you device if you hope to lead Mina and Jep around the island. Jules Verne’s Secrets of the Mysterious Island is another 5-Dimple gem.

Jules Verne’s Secrets of the Mysterious Island gets our AppSmile 5-Dimple rating: