Mystery Detective DS
Mystery Detective (a.k.a. Touch Detective in the US) for the Nintendo DS has been around for quite some time, but, well, I just grabbed a copy and thought I’d let you know what my first impressions on the thing are. First of all, it quite apparently is a proper adventure game in the most traditional of senses. Secondly, it’s a quirky offering. Then, it sports an intuitive yet versatile point-and-click interface, brilliant cartoony graphics and some decent audio, though thankfully no voice-overs. Oh, and it’s as old-school as any adventurer could ever wish for. But, is Mystery Adventure a truly good game? Now, I haven’t made up my mind yet, but I have to admit the story (spanning 4 linear cases) isn’t that exciting really and the cutesy setting isn’t exactly to my liking. The puzzles are on the simple side of things too. On the other hand, Mystery Detective is indeed enjoyable, polished, taxing enough for something that will be played while waiting for the the bus, and -dare I say- quite addictive. Besides, it makes us all think about the possibilities of playing Monkey Island on the DS. Who knows, maybe Lucasarts might entertain the thought too… Mind you, newcomers to the genre will probably enjoy Mystery Detective more than I did.
Posted on June 9th, 2008 by konstantinos
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This post got me thinking . . . has there been a major innovation or significant change in the ‘typical’ player’s abilities within computer adventure games?
FPS aeems like one of the most changed game types: the convention, the AI, and the expected skill levels are much different today than for Doom or even the Quake days.
Even platformers seem to have evolved in some ways.
I don’t mean this as a criticism of adventure games, but it might explain how older adventure games seem to hold up well and, outside of the graphics, don’t seem old.
The most significant change I can think of is the change from text-based to mouse-focused adventure games.
June 9th, 2008 at 10:40 amHmmm… interesting question… then again puzzles and mechanics have always varied so widely in the genre, that typical abilities would be hard to point out.
On the other hand, the interface side of things hasn’t evolved wildly, though there have been quite a lot variations and attempts at innovation. I for one liked the interface of Gabriel’s Knight 3 which sadly hasn’t been evolved since and I did appreciate all the subtle innovation Sam & Max introduced.
Then again, the evolution of text adventures has been impressive, ranging from the incorporation of physics to almost believable AIs.
Uhm, did I answer at all?
June 10th, 2008 at 2:46 am