ALL ABOARD!

In 1995, Her Interactive
released a game that provided mystery fans and adventure gamers
alike with a thrilling, chilling case to solve
starring the world’s most popular teen detective. Ten years
later, the small company of less than twenty-five remains one of
the most hard-working and customer-friendly companies in the adventure
game business today.

Summer brought a celebration
of Nancy Drew’s long-anticipated
75th anniversary with a throwback to her first case, The
Secret of the Old Clock, in a short and easy adventure that could entertain
on those lonely days home from school or in between vacations. Regular
fans of the series know, however, that Her Interactive’s fall
release is always a much more difficult and intricate endeavor, and
2005 brings no exception!

In the thirteenth installment
of the series, Nancy finds herself on a mystery train to Copper
Gorge as the guest of – who else? – the
infamous Hardy Boys! They were invited by tabloid favorite Lori Girard,
who gives little reason as to why they are all on the train, and
in any case disappears before she can reveal this little tidbit!
In due time, Nancy and the Hardy brothers are hot on the case – but
they have some competition this time around as they try to solve
mysteries past and present on the last train to Blue Moon Canyon!

ALL THE GEARS IN MOTION

First off, let me say that the animatics and character sprites in
this game are just gorgeous. Gone are the blurry (and probably rushed)
graphics of Old Clock, and here are the incredibly realistic, detailed
ones of today. The characters have life-life idiosyncrasies (such
as adjusting their glasses or fiddling with equipment), and the amount
of detail put into every object (such as ghost-hunting equipment!)
really shows a lot of quality time and effort that surpasses even
more recent, big-budget titles with five times as many people at
work behind the scenes. Even the cursors have undergone some nice
changes.

The voice acting in this
game is also at a superb level, with the tone and delivery matching
each character – from the preppy
Lori Girard to the tough Italian detective Tino Balducci – to
the maximum. The lip-synching leaves a little to be desired, but
is overall very convincing. However, I’ve noticed that Nancy
could use some more effect in her voice – or perhaps just better
lines than “What did you find?” or “So what do
you think about this suspect?” When she gets funny lines, Lani
Minella can really ham it up into some great comedy, but boring lines
(particularly no-brainers like “I’ll have to find a tool
to open this thing”) sound dull and monotonous.

The Hardy Boys serve mostly as NPCs in the game, although there
is one situation in which you get to play as Frank Hardy. Otherwise
they act merely as extra sources of information and you are required
to talk on them on several occasions to gain important information
to the case. They are actually rather amusing companions during the
ride as they banter in the way most brothers do, but I wish that
they had played a more active role in the mystery.

MYSTERY TRAIN

The main plot of this game will no doubt be familiar to fans of
the series or the books: a dead man left a bunch of riddles to his
treasure, you have to find it, and oh yeah there are ghosts lurking
about.

I won’t spend another
review ranting about the need for new plots but, really, I do hope
someone out there is listening and can
back me up.

This new search for hidden treasure involves a mixed bag of puzzles.
Some of them are entirely unnecessary because of their ridiculous
simplicity. Her Interactive often goes through the trouble to hide
every clue inside some kind of puzzle box but never takes the time
to create interesting, unique and challenging puzzles for each one.
Only about half of the boxes get that full attention while the rest
get silly games like pushing a button fifteen times in a mechanical
steeplechase game or solving a randomized button-pushing (yet again!)
sequence puzzle.

It is frustrating that at every step of the journey in this game
there is a puzzle to solve, because it is easy to see that these
easy puzzles are thrown in only to lengthen gameplay. Finding the
pen, for instance, is awfully foolish, as is trying to open a grate
with trick screws.

Needless to say that
Her Interactive uses just about every past puzzle concept in this
game, but does introduce some new ones. Some
of these new additions are long and well-planned but poorly executed.
Others don’t really have any obvious clues to help solve them,
and others yet are simply preposterous, like moving a pair of dance
shoes around on a floor in a dance pattern that is drawn on a piece
of paper.

I cannot say anything
further except that while the puzzles feel comfortable in their
environment and are for the most part not too
much of a hassle (with the exception of four – count ‘em,
four – pipe-connecting puzzles), they simply aren’t good
ones.

There are also a lot
of puzzles that I didn’t find completely
fair because of items hid in ridiculously obtuse places. In some
cases all you need is just a very careful eye, but in other cases
you just have to scan every inch of every room into you come upon
a new hotspot.

However, through various
puzzles gamers will naturally have a chance to learn about some
topics that don’t quite make idle chatter
these days: needlepoint and gemstones. The puzzles that accompanied
these topics were probably the only good, challenging puzzles that
experienced gamers will enjoy.

PULL THE EMERGENCY BRAKE!

You may very well have
to stop your train ride right here if your computer does not meet
the system requirements for this game, which
have been updated since Old Clock and have already put sad faces
on many longstanding Nancy Drew fans for the mere reason that they
don’t have 1 GHz or greater Pentium or equivalent class
CPU.
This is a big change from the mere 400Mhz Pentium required for previous
games. I have no idea what my computer (a circa-‘02 Gateway
XP) can handle, but the game is running smoothly despite some momentary
freezing here and there. Apparently the change in Pentium (whatever
that is) was decided upon after research of Her Interactive’s
current user base.

I should also mention
that this one of the very few Nancy Drew games to have two disks!
You don’t actually use the second – it’s
just for installation purposes – but you may want to double-check
that you get one with your game.

THE FINAL STOP

This is an entry in the
series that long-time fans will love. Despite its serious lack
of background music, the game delivers strong in
so many ways that you will look over any of the weak puzzles and
enjoy another outing with Nancy, the Hardys, and the usual collection
of goofy and humorous characters (even a recurring character from
a previous mystery!), accompanied by dialogue that’s more crisp
and witty than it has been in a while.

If you’re new to the series, don’t start here – but
think about how much you will enjoy this game once you have played
some of its predecessors!

You’ll be glad you bought yourself a ticket on this train – and
make sure to reserve your seat for a trip to Paris for Nancy’s
next case!

Until next crime …!

Final Grade: A-
(find out more about our
grading system)

System Requirements:

• 1 GHz or greater Pentium or equivalent class CPU,
• 128 MB of RAM,
• 650 MB or more of
  hard drive space,
• 32 MB DirectX compatible
  video card,
• 16 bit DirectX compatible
  sound card,
• 24X CD-ROM drive,
  mouse, and speakers