Nancy Drew®: The Silent Spy
Overall, I’d give this one a 7.5/10! I liked the story and the puzzles were a good level of difficulty, perhaps it was on the medium side. Some of the characters were great, some were alright. The setting of this game was a good one as well, however there weren’t that many places to explore. I’m glad that the “chore” type stuff in this one was super minimal - barely there at all. I also liked that most of the resources you needed were with you most of the time.
One of the weaker points to this one was that there was a lot of repetition in the conversations with the characters. I think Nancy asked the same questions like 10 times. But because I liked most of the characters enough, it was not unbearable, and you can skip through them. It also felt like a relatively short game compared to some others.
– Real player with 14.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Detective Funny Games.
Scotland. Secret agent themed brain teasers. Scotland. Archery. Need I say more?
Seriously, if you are a long time Nancy Drew game fan, this one hits all the marks, not to mention it’s a rare and responsibly told foray into Nancy’s canon and they do such a good job with the story. The game flows well and there always seem to be something to do, even in lulls
(of which there were few). It has a good range of puzzles, ranging from fun, to medium to challenging (for me these are always the ones where you simply use association and intuition to put the clues together, and ultimately solve it using trial and error). Be warned there is a lot of text/letters to read and lots of dialogue.
– Real player with 10.5 hrs in game
Police Quest™ Collection
Just as a preface, so people don’t think I’m some unappreciative punk. Back in the 80s and 90s I adored Sierra On-Line and all their games. The Space Quest and especially the Quest for Glory series are still some of my favorite adventure games of all time. But the Police Quest series just can’t hang with any of their other games.
So far, I’ve only played VGA version of Police Quest I. But it’s pretty awful. The VGA era for Sierra On-Line was like an awkward stage in puberty. Gone were the colorful graphics of the first two generations of EGA, and in their place was an absolutely hideous attempt at “realism” rather than stylization and attractive appearance. Additionally, the first generation of point-and-click interface is clunky and difficult to use, mainly because this is a remake of the EGA version, and they’ve attempted to shoehorn in a lot of the original parser actions into the very limited set of icon actions. So in some places, you can click with the hand icon to use things, like a door, but in others, you have to use the walking icon to use things, like the shower. Because, you see, in the original, you couldn’t type “use shower”, you had to walk to it. Dur. And the modified driving interface for the VGA version is an utter pain in the ass to use.
– Real player with 60.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Detective Pixel Graphics Games.
Gamer’s Discression is Advised.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEnibPvgfZo
A Collection of 4 Police Quest titles released from 1987-1993. It’s Another great Inventory Adventure series that Sierra On-Line created back when MS-DOS & Windows 3.1/95/98 was still by popular demand. The first three games were produced by former police officer Jim Walls and follow the adventures of Sonny Bonds, a character whose name and appearance was loosely based off his own son, Sonny Walls while the remainder Police Quest games were produced by former L.A. Chief Daryl Gates, in a different style in both atmosphere, and later even in genre.
– Real player with 30.1 hrs in game
Tex Murphy: Martian Memorandum
The second game of the Tex Muphy series did less genre crossover and had a great strength with its LucasArts-era classic adventure design. Graphically it’s a solid retro adventure FMV mix, the only downside being missing hotspots: even when hovering the mouse over interactible objects there is no cursor feedback whatsoever which made and still makes the game terribly hasslesome on a first playthrough due to easily missing out on interacting with key items on the quite blurry screen. A walkthrough or a frustration tolerance made out of steel might be required for new players. Truth be told, the entire gamedesign is extremely oldschool due to the inherent actual age of the game and it might prove too much of a bother altogether to newer gamers.
– Real player with 78.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Detective FMV Games.
Loveable nostalgic experience! Game runs on DOSBOX and is like 27MB in size. Classic point-and-click adventure set in a dystopian post-WW3 era. You play as Tex Murphy, private detective. It absolutely feels like a mixture between Blade Runner and Total Recall and I love it! It borrowed heavily from these two movies but offers enough unique content to stand on it’s own.
Martian Memorandum features a very simple interface with big buttons on the bottom of the screen. Just click on either “LOOK”, “OPEN”, “USE” etc. and then on the object to interact. Unique for it’s time is the usage of some FMV sequences starring real actors. Dialogue sequences play a big role in this game. Chosing the wrong dialogue option leads to uncooperative behaviour. There are also a few “action sequences” like using a hoverboard to pass through a security area with pressure plates and lasers or traversing a ventilation shaft in full 3D!
– Real player with 16.1 hrs in game
Tex Murphy: Overseer
First thing first: You need the K-Lite codec and FFDSHOW to be able to play this without issues. That being said, Tex Murphy: Overseer is the 5th Tex Murphy game and probably one of the best FMV games ever released, featuring actual gameplay with lots and lots of dialogues.
Overseer is basically a remake of Mean Streets without the ridiculous flight simulator and it ends with a cliffhanger which was resolved 15 years later with Tesla Effect.
A sci-fi noir adventure of old at its best.
– Real player with 37.2 hrs in game
I think i reached my limit in this game. I keep getting error messages as i am at Gideons house using the poles to try and get across the pressure sensitive floor. As a kid i played this game and would get stuck all the time because we didnt have a strategy guide online to follow like i do now. Makes it a lot easier but it is also a clear MUST if your going to play this game. Anyone thats says its cheating and they never used it is a liar OR they spent YEARS trying to beat this game. If they can fix the game i will finish it. As of now i am S.O.L. !
– Real player with 34.4 hrs in game
Tex Murphy: The Pandora Directive
Tex Murphy is one of those things you either had to grow up with or which you’ll probably never get.
That being said, it remains one of the least worst FMV series in existence. Some would even go as far as to call all of them a masterpiece. Personally, I won’t but there’s definitely historical merit to them and the story is indeed actually quite cool.
The acting is not as cringeworthy as the old C&C in between mission movies and has its moments, but all things considered this age pretty terrible.
– Real player with 126.2 hrs in game
Truely awesome game. Had this back in the day but forgot how good it really was. The story line is great and the puzzles are devious but not un-doable with a little logic. All in all, it took me 38 hours to complete. ( although that includes time spent going off to make a cup of tea while I thought about where to go next) . Some of you may find that the initial scenes, discussions and traveling a little tedious at first but the game does become more exciting as it goes on.
The Tex Murphey games are the leaders in this genre. IMO.
– Real player with 71.4 hrs in game
Tex Murphy: Mean Streets
Mean Streets is an open world game set in the far off future of 2033 complete with flying cars that have wireless fax machines, imagine that! You take on the role of detective Tex Murphy to solve the mysterious death of a University professor. Next time you see that someone wants a GTA style open world game, tip your fedora, saying you want a real open world game Tex Murphy style. This is vintage gaming at its best, the game comes with a manual, where the manual for the first time ever in the history of me gaming on steam is required.
– Real player with 25.9 hrs in game
That game was made before I was born and yet it still entertain me. It’s amazing how much fun can be packed in that 30MB. I must admit that graphics hurts my eyes comparing to modern games but this game really makes up for that with gameplay.
Lots of locations which You can visit in open-world manner, roaming West Coast in a flight simulator. Every location come with map to search for clues and evidence or memorable and distinctive character. Some of them will cooperate. And some won’t.
Also, I’ve really liked that I had to write my questions. Nothing was given to me on the silver plate. It gives lots of satisfaction when all of the clues start to make sense. And if You find Yourself stuck, after looking everywhere and asking everyone (and believe me, You are wrong if You think so) You may always ask Your informator. For a price of course.
– Real player with 16.9 hrs in game
Déjà Vu: MacVenture Series
A very limited and simple quasi-real life simulator that has troll gameplay which makes you die unpredictably just because the game wanted you to die because of a particular choice you made, so, while playing this game, make your peace with death and prepare to die, LOL. At least the game has a great sense of witty, sarcastic and dark humour and a sense of showing the rope about life 101 to help players free from their own naivety and ignorance.
It’s very admirable that, as an adventure game, players ain’t tasked with most of the adventure games' usual boring errand-runner tasks that require them to solve a moon logic puzzle. What this game mostly ask from you is finding a key to open particular doors. As simple as it may sounds, the actual complexity of the game is figuring out who you are, what happened to you, where to go and how you can make things right for you.
– Real player with 8.6 hrs in game
Deja Vu was the first of the MacVenture entries that was released in 1985. It places you in the role of Ace Harding, a retired boxer now detective gumshoe set in the 1940s.The only problem is, you’ve woken up in a bathroom stall and worst of all - you don’t remember a single thing of who you are!
This leaves you in the challenging role to solve the problem before you become a vegetable. That’s not the only worry because it just so happens that a band of criminals have framed you for a murder and a kidnapping. This is requiring you, the player, to think out of the box and think like a detective to help Ace.
– Real player with 6.6 hrs in game
Jack Orlando: Director’s Cut
Do NOT buy this game!
edit: I still don’t recommend it but if you want to finish the game, there are workarounds at the end of this review.
This version of the game isn’t worth 10 cents. It’s a wine prefix with major issues. Jack Orlando is an old pal who, unfortunately, aged very very badly.
Pros:
- used to be a decent point&click (when it run as intended)
Cons:
-
bugged stereo support and no mono option
-
bugged resolution support
– Real player with 6.7 hrs in game
Because I’m a fan of the noir genre and adventure games, I was curious about Jack Orlando; though, even as I’m writing this after spend six hours on it, I still do haved mixed feelings about it.
I’ll explain the pros and pros before giving my final thoughts on it.
But first, a brief summary:
Jack Orlando is an African-American (don’t let the cover art fool you, the protagonist is black and I found it very refreshing!) private detective in the 1930s, just after Prohibition ended. One night after drinking his sorrows away, Jack unwittingly stumbles onto the scene of a murder - and the blame is immediately placed on him due to the lack of witnesses and evidence. He’s given two days to find the real killer; thus, he soon finds himself tangled in an elaborate conspiracy.
– Real player with 6.6 hrs in game
Nancy Drew®: Danger by Design
Look, I love Nancy Drew games… most of the time.
This was not one of those times. The ending was random, anti-climatic, and had an annoying twist of having to fight someone. (Which requires both crazy dexterity and memorization.) Most of the side-plots get zero resolution.
There’s also a timed event that occurs while a conversation is going on. Time limits are always stressful for me, but I get it, it’s Nancy Drew. There tends to be at least one in each game. But while listening to chatter? Ugh. No. Just… no.
– Real player with 13.4 hrs in game
This one is bad; one of the worst ones I have ever played (the other one being Secret at Shadow Ranch, I would not get that one either, if I were you. If you want to know why, check out my review on the Secret of Shadow Ranch, because there are a bunch of major problems in that game too). The puzzles in this game are just mind boggling; they make no sense, and are really frustrating, because most of them come without any tips or clues, leaving you to figure it out on your own.
One of the most infuriating parts in this game is where you have to develop photos in a dark room; and when I say dark, I mean pitch black. You have all the trays with different liquids, to place the photos in, but then you have to switch the light off when you do that!! Apparently, the red lighting in the room damages the photos, so you have to work in complete darkness, feeling around for the trays to put the photos in. It’s so easy to knock bottles of fluids over, which somehow causes an explosion (??), then you have to take a second chance.
– Real player with 12.3 hrs in game
Nancy Drew®: Secret of the Scarlet Hand
Not one of my favourites. i' say the characters are better than they are in the average Nancy Drew game and the story itself unfolds really well with some great twists in it, but in the end the setting and the atmosphere were a bit of a let-down. The puzzles were too easy and I never once got that feeling of accomplishment when you crack a difficult challenge. There’s also a lot of studying to do in this one. The puzzles require you to track back and forth through the museum reading the displays and taking plenty of notes which might put some people off. Personally I don’t mind the studying, but you’re pretty much required to have some interest in Mayan culture if you’re going to enjoy this one.
– Real player with 9.2 hrs in game
I’ve heard a wide variety of different opinions concerning Secret of the Scarlet Hand as I’ve made my way through the Nancy Drew series. Some people seem to really enjoy it. Others seem to hate it. Me…I end up leaning more towards the latter. This is not a terrible game by any standards, but I definitely think it’s one of the weakest entries in the entire franchise. I would still recommend it to anyone who enjoys ND games, but it’s definitely one that you don’t need to rush into playing.
There will be Spoilers, you’ve been warned:
– Real player with 9.0 hrs in game