- Learn About Houdini And His Magic Tricks.
- Explore A Historical Theatre.
- Work With The Police And Local Groups.
- Two Difficulty Settings.
Product Description
When a high school friend gets kidnapped in an historic theater, you, as Nancy Drew, are plunged into a desperate race against the clock. With the theater being torn down in just three days, can Nancy outwit the kidnapper and rescue her friend before the wrecking ball flies? Or will this be Maya’s final scene?
This is a spoiler-free review.
PLOT: 7/10
As the fifth one in the Nancy Drew series, this is the first that Nancy has become personally involved in as her friend has been kidnapped, and she must find out why and how before the theatre in which the kidnapping took place is demolished. As far as plots go, this one was rather interesting, though unoriginal, and I felt personally involved to save the friend and theatre during gameplay.
CHARACTERS: 9/10
The characters were fascinating, and wonderfully ambiguous. Everyone had a motive, something to hide, and a means. Nancy Drew herself, unfortunately, was unusually annoying in this game. Her frantic speech was tolerable at the beginning of the game (as the friend had been taken right under her nose), but her never-ceasing panicking and unfounded screaming rampages at *everyone* was completely unnecessary for a detective who is usually very level-headed.
SETTING: 8/10
A old theatre is a wonderful setting for a mystery, especially one that housed Harry Houdini himself. The only complaint is the rather confusing directional arrows that tend to only appear in one spot that can make navigating the complex hallways frustrating.
PUZZLES: 4/10
Sadly, the majority of the game is spent talking to people, making it more of a mental mystery than a physical one. While this is fine for a book, it made the game easy to complete, due to the scarcity and simplicity of the puzzles. Also, the game was not very straightforward, and I had to call for hints on what to do next many times.
LENGTH: 4/10
A very short game that is supposed to take place over the course of three whole days. Perhaps more puzzles might have lengthened it.
ENDING: 10/10
Easily the best part of the game and what made it worth every penny. I had played the more recent Nancy Drew games (Haunting of Castle Malloy, Legend of the Crystal Skull) before playing this one and I had quite forgotten how heart-pounding and compelling the old games’ endings used to be.
OVERALL: 7/10
The good rating is for the ending, the characters, and the story. A pleasant addition to the Nancy Drew series
TECHNICALITIES:
Another reviewer on here mentioned having difficulty downloading the game onto a Windows 7. Fearful of such an event, I downloaded the free trial first, which actually downloaded the entire game, though it would not let me play until I had paid. In any case, the download went without a hitch and I played the game successfully on a Windows 7 PC.
Rating: 4 / 5
I bought this game for my daughter, but it did not install on her Windows 7 laptop or on a Windows Vista desktop. The setup program keeps showing corrupted source file errors throughout the installation. I don’t have Win XP anymore, so I can’t test it with XP. The other Nancy Drew games she has were bought directly from Her Interactive and never had a problem, including another one bought right after this. The corrupted source file errors are suspicious, especially because after each different download, the error would come up at different places. I tried a refund, but Amazon refuses to do it.
Rating: 1 / 5