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-