Nancy Drew: Danger by Design
Aug. 5th, 2006 10:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
candylandWell, I finished my game...after forgetting to take it to camp with me. So I had to pull up a walkthrough online and help my sister beat the game via telephone *sigh* Got home, and beat it.
Basic premise: go to Paris to find out why Minette (a fashion designer) is acting so strangely. She's wearing a white mask all the time, throwing tantrums, firing people left and right. So the assignment is to go undercover and find out why this is happening. Sounds relatively straight-forward, right?
...well, the game turned out to be not quite what I was expecting. The graphics were the best they've had yet in a game (and I have played all of them, including the awful first one where the characters were hand-animated instead of CGI *cringes*), but...I think this might have been the least amount of character interaction we've ever had in an ND game. I think we talked to each character two or three times--never more than half a dozen. In the other games, you're CONSTANTLY talking to people or calling people and such.
Another thing...we have this basic storyline of finding out why Minette's wearing a mask and being a royal bitch to everyone, and it really doesn't go anywhere. Instead, we start by running errands and solving mindless puzzles that don't really seem to get us anywhere. Then, suddenly, halfway through we wind up in one of Her Interactive's (HI) famous historical plots. Don't get me wrong, I usually love these--I'm a huge history buff. But it didn't really feel like the game was going anywhere. Stuff just seemed to come out of nowhere. In short, there really wasn't a cohesive plot. At least, not like we're used to from these games.
The audio was another thing. The voice acting was good--they always have solid VAs. But the music...I'm a music nerd, as most of you know, and usually in these games the music is phenomenal. I actually sounded out one of the melodies from another game, The Haunted Carousel, and arranged it on Finale just because it was so cool and catchy. The BG music in this game wasn't anything spectacular. I couldn't even hum any of it for you, where if you asked for a BG tune from Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake, I could start humming.
I won't spoil the ending, but it was a little odd. In these games, you usually have to find a way to stop the criminal/perpetrator/whatever, but...I think this is the first one where we've gotten to face the baddie face-to-face. It was kind of an interesting way to handle it, but then we find out why Minette's wearing a mask (through no actual detective work, though that was initially supposed to be our mission). I couldn't decide if I should laugh...or tug my hair in frustration and sigh.
All in all, not a bad game, but it was a definite disappointment when set against the expectations that I think most of us had for it. Great graphics, good voice acting (as always), but...it needed more plot, and more interaction. I'll probably play it again at some point, but it was nowhere near the level of, say, Treasure in the Royal Tower or Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon.
Well, I guess now I get to kick back and wait for The Creature of Kapu Cave, which should be out in October-ish. But traditionally, they release two games a year. The summer release is usually not as good as the fall release, so I have high hopes for the upcoming game. And besides, we get to play with the Hardy Boys =D
Official game website can be found here, for any who are interested.
Basic premise: go to Paris to find out why Minette (a fashion designer) is acting so strangely. She's wearing a white mask all the time, throwing tantrums, firing people left and right. So the assignment is to go undercover and find out why this is happening. Sounds relatively straight-forward, right?
...well, the game turned out to be not quite what I was expecting. The graphics were the best they've had yet in a game (and I have played all of them, including the awful first one where the characters were hand-animated instead of CGI *cringes*), but...I think this might have been the least amount of character interaction we've ever had in an ND game. I think we talked to each character two or three times--never more than half a dozen. In the other games, you're CONSTANTLY talking to people or calling people and such.
Another thing...we have this basic storyline of finding out why Minette's wearing a mask and being a royal bitch to everyone, and it really doesn't go anywhere. Instead, we start by running errands and solving mindless puzzles that don't really seem to get us anywhere. Then, suddenly, halfway through we wind up in one of Her Interactive's (HI) famous historical plots. Don't get me wrong, I usually love these--I'm a huge history buff. But it didn't really feel like the game was going anywhere. Stuff just seemed to come out of nowhere. In short, there really wasn't a cohesive plot. At least, not like we're used to from these games.
The audio was another thing. The voice acting was good--they always have solid VAs. But the music...I'm a music nerd, as most of you know, and usually in these games the music is phenomenal. I actually sounded out one of the melodies from another game, The Haunted Carousel, and arranged it on Finale just because it was so cool and catchy. The BG music in this game wasn't anything spectacular. I couldn't even hum any of it for you, where if you asked for a BG tune from Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake, I could start humming.
I won't spoil the ending, but it was a little odd. In these games, you usually have to find a way to stop the criminal/perpetrator/whatever, but...I think this is the first one where we've gotten to face the baddie face-to-face. It was kind of an interesting way to handle it, but then we find out why Minette's wearing a mask (through no actual detective work, though that was initially supposed to be our mission). I couldn't decide if I should laugh...or tug my hair in frustration and sigh.
All in all, not a bad game, but it was a definite disappointment when set against the expectations that I think most of us had for it. Great graphics, good voice acting (as always), but...it needed more plot, and more interaction. I'll probably play it again at some point, but it was nowhere near the level of, say, Treasure in the Royal Tower or Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon.
Well, I guess now I get to kick back and wait for The Creature of Kapu Cave, which should be out in October-ish. But traditionally, they release two games a year. The summer release is usually not as good as the fall release, so I have high hopes for the upcoming game. And besides, we get to play with the Hardy Boys =D
Official game website can be found here, for any who are interested.