Vampire Moon: The Mystery of the Hidden Sun and Crime Lab: Body of Evidence Reviews

Vampire Moon: The Mystery of the Hidden Sun

Every month we receive numerous requests from publishers & developers to review their new adventure, or action/adventure or even games that barely contain borderline adventure game elements. Heck, we’ve even received requests to review first-person shooters. But it wasn’t until a request to review a company’s newest HO game arrived that I was truly stumped. It took me a few hours – and probably I should have clicked on the link and looked at the game first – but it seems that an HO game is a Hidden Object game (and I hope your mind wasn’t in the gutter).

Vampire Moon: The Mystery of the Hidden Sun is an H.O. game (notice the importance of punctuation!) from our old friends at City Interactive and the good news is that they seem to have finally purchased a Funk & Wagnalls as there is not a messspelled, oops, misspelled word in sight.

Polish developer City Interactive is known in the adventure community for their two series of point-and-click mysteries. The Art of Murder games starring FBI agent Nicole Bonnet and featuring FBI Confidential, Cards of Destiny and Hunt for the Puppeteer & the Chronicles of Mystery starring Parisian archeologist Sylvie Leroux featuring The Tree of Life, The Scorpio Ritual and Curse of the Ancient Temple.

But that was then and this is now as City Interactive has temporarily branched out from their adventure roots in favor of Hidden Object games on the Nintendo DS and also their acclaimed shooter for the PS3, Sniper: Ghost Warrior. It does though look as though their Art of Murder and Chronicles of Mystery series’ are to be transmogrified into part-adventure, part-hidden-object games on the pc (the upcoming Legend of the Sacred Treasure, Secret of the Lost Kingdom and The Secret Files). Which brings us to Vampire Moon.

Hidden Object games are a secret passion of mine. But I hate them because once I start playing, there is no quitting and if I’m munching from a bag of Lays Potato Chips at the same time, well, double whammy. Even better are the newer themed games such as Edgar Allen Poe or even – and I’m not making this up – Dostoyevsky. As long as the search objects relate to the subject matter the overall quality of the game is enhanced.

Vampire Moon, unfortunately, is tepid Twilight twaddle as a young reporter is sent to Transylvania to investigate an ongoing solar eclipse. Though it does a better job than most hidden object games, it tries too hard to be a titillating teenage tale of vampiric adoration. There are occasional flashes of adventure game intrusions when an inventory item must be used to progress or a map reassembled, but like most Hidden Object games there are also moments of total lunacy.

In one instance, reporter Emily Davis wonders why a statue of an angel would be in the middle of nowhere, but earlier in the game I wondered as to why she didn’t question the inclusion of, in her hastily assembled list of items to pack for her trip, an earthworm? Especially when everything else on her list made sense. Even worse though is an ancient oracle living in a hut outside Dracula’s castle who like Yoda speaks. Every encounter with her is a totally nonsensical moment that repudiates the game’s gothic atmosphere.

The graphics are beautiful – as they are in all City Interactive games – and the reporter’s diary and the addition of factual evidence add some authenticity to the atmosphere, but Vampire Moon: The Mystery of the Hidden Sun is the ‘B’ movie in a double feature and receives a Final Grade of C.

Crime Lab: Body of Evidence

Crime Lab: Body of Evidence is the main feature of our double bill. Fully expecting Crime Lab to be just another mediocre entry in the Hidden Object genre, I was truly blown away by the game’s depth. In fact, Crime Lab is anything but a Hidden Object game.

Starring FBI agent Nicole Bonnet of the Art of Murder series, Crime Lab: Body of Evidence is part CSI, part mini-game, part hidden-object. But the key to these is that they are all related to the subject matter – the capture of a serial killer who leaves playing cards near the bodies of his victims.

The sixteen hidden object levels all involve searches for items that are integral to the investigation. No hunting for items totally unrelated to the case such as minute needles or insects blended into the wood grain. Instead you must find objects that can provide evidence or clues to the crime. And if you must locate a seemingly unrelated object, rest assured you will need to use your luminal to search for traces of blood.

You will interrogate suspects and learn to analyze fingerprints. Your PDA will be used to access different locations among many and crime scenes are often a combination of hidden objects, evidence gathering, interrogations and minigames related to the crime.

Now, we did play in the relaxed (i.e. casual) difficulty setting in the Story Mode so we did not have to worry about the time factor or the higher levels of difficulty in the minigames (though you’re more then welcome to give your brain a workout if you wish), but we’re really just skimming the surface of the many available features. Besides the crime scenes and the minigames, you can also unlock character biographies, read criminal profile notes or even obtain awards as you progress through the mystery.

There are also some nifty-sounding DSi features that we unfortunately could not attempt as we’re a poor lot who just have a regular old DS. They are Hand Movement Recognition, which allows you to move your hand in front of the camera instead of using a stylus, Shape Recognition that uses the DSi camera as a fingerprint scanner and Face Recognition that utilizes the camera as a security eye scanner.

Crime Lab: Body of Evidence offers a lot of bang for your gaming buck and I’d give it a big thumbs-up but I’m afraid Agent Bonnet would scan my fingerprint and reveal my dark, secret past.

Crime Lab: Body of Evidence – A-