Nancy Drew: Stay Tuned for Danger

The Good
I love the fact that somebody has revived the famous teenage sleuth, Nancy Drew, in an interactive mystery game. Reading the Nancy Drew novels as a preteen (way back when) fueled my brain cells and gave me a new interest in reading as a whole. In my mind, Nancy Drew is right up there with Sherlock Holmes. I don’t think I’m alone when I say that I always wanted to dive in and help Nancy solve a case. To actually become Nancy is something I didn’t expect, and I was thrilled.

As far as the actual game is concerned, remember that I am an experienced adventure game player, so I tend to be more critical than some when it comes to the actual workings of a game. I also cannot help but compare the technology, graphics, etc. with other games released during the same time period. In my opinion, Stay Tuned For Danger is only rates an average score in that respect.

Playing the game, as a whole, is fairly easy. (Since it is intended for children, that is a good thing.) I experienced no problems with installation or in saving and loading games. The music is pleasant and the graphics are realistic. When characters talk, they lip-sync the words very well, and the voice acting is excellent, with all the proper inflections in tone and expression. “Hot spots” for objects and other places of interest are large and easy to find.

The story unfolds gradually as Nancy finds clues, and is intriguing, as any mystery should be. You don’t know “whodunit” until the very end.

The Bad
Her Interactive’s design team was still learning when they created this game. You can tell by the number of cursor glitches and other random bugs. At least the game never crashed and I was able to ignore them and go on.

There are not enough puzzles, and those that were there were not hard enough, even playing as a Master Detective. The only difference in the 3 difficulty levels seemed to be the amount of time you are given in the timed sequences. To quote from the review I wrote for another web site, “Are experienced adventurers supposed to be faster than inexperienced ones?” I don’t think so.

I would have liked more save game slots, and the overall length of the game was very short.

The Bottom Line
Although a big improvement from the first game, the first game, Stay Tuned For Danger is still not quite up to par with is expected in today’s gaming market. It isn’t bad – just not really good. If I were you, I’d skip this one and move onto the next in the series.

The Good
Plot and story line remained interesting throughout the game. Frankly, playing Nancy Drew is kind of fun (I was a Drew fan a long time ago) and solving mysteries as her is a hoot.

Interface is similar, but not exactly like, all the other Drew games. A lot can be said for this: if you've played other Drew games, you can pretty much jump right in without any learning curve.

The Bad
Quite a bit, unfortunately. For starters, there are quite a few bugs.

Cursor glitches: The cursor sometimes leaves an image of itself on the interface.

Characters with nervous ticks: The NPC's of this game were models, unlike "Secrets Can Kill" (the first Nancy Drew game) where the NPC's were cartoons. The developers didn't quite get the models correct. While they talk, their eyebrows go up and down rapidly, making them look like they have nervous ticks. They have strange arm movements and gestures. Her Interactive definitely improved the model technology in later games. In this one, it became a little silly.

Crashes: This game (and the previous "Secrets Can Kill") are the only Nancy Drew games to crash on me. The exact cause of the crash appeared to be the game engine attempting to play two sound files at the same time. Probably a race condition or mixer error of some sort.

Causality: Sometimes you could talk to NPC's about things that haven't happened yet. Sometimes the NPC's would repeat themselves, talking about something that happened very early on in the game as if it were about to happen.

The previous things weren't too awful. The crash was annoying, but the other issues could certainly be overlooked. The next issues were more serious.

Floor-plan was bad: While in the room, it was sometimes very difficult to simply walk to the other side of the room. You had to follow very unintuitive paths to get from point A to point B. It was very frustrating to be able to see where you wanted to go, but have to go through some strange very round-about way.

Worse still, the cursor symbol for "move backwards" is the same symbol for "turn around", causing strong disorientation in parts of the game. This was corrected in later games, where turning around was a "u shaped" cursor and going backwards was an arrow pointing downwards.

The thing I didn't like most about the game was the definite presence of pixel hunting. There weren't as many puzzles in this game as there were in other Drew games. In their place are a few very frustrating, unforgivable pixel-hunting items.

The Bottom Line
I do not recommend this game, unless you're planning on finishing the series or are a hardcore Nancy Drew adventure fan.

Something can be said for people who want to finish a series, especially one as large as the Drew series. However, if you're a casual adventurer, and are looking for a nice point-and-click adventure to pass some time, I would recommend you look elsewhere. Her Interactive definitely got the later Drew games "right", but were definitely learning on this one.