 |
| OVERALL RATING |
3.0 |
| Presentation |
 |
3.0 |
| Control |
 |
4.0 |
| Gameplay |
|
3.0 |
| Fun factor |
|
3.0 |
| User Rating |
 |
3.5 |
 |
Posted: March 26, 2007
Detective Puzzles is a different breed of game in which users play the role of a detective investigating a series of crimes. A story-driven title, there are four cases to take on and each involves nabbing the culprit by finding solutions to different puzzles.
As a Mike Hammer wannabee, getting to the truth means visiting locations, interviewing suspects and reviewing evidence. Six different puzzles within the storyline lead you on the path to justice and these will become more difficult to solve with each ensuing case.
Identity kit is a facial recognition game where players choose features to make a picture of a suspect’s face. This includes eyes, nose, hair and more. In Phone Tap, you must re-create a pattern in order to obtain the correct phone number. Code Breaker has you determining the correct pattern of numbers in order to find the missing number that unlocks a door. High Speed Chase involves avoiding cars to catch up to the suspect’s vehicle, and Shooting Range tests your shooting speed and accuracy. By far, the most difficult of the puzzles is Chain of Evidence in which you must fit pieces of evidence into the correct rooms in order to decipher the crime. These pieces can only be placed in a certain pattern and it’s up to you to figure it out.
Each of the puzzles is either timed or gives you only a certain amount of tries to solve. Unfortunately, most of them throw you directly into the puzzle, without a tutorial, so you have to learn on-the-fly. Sometimes it’s easy to figure out what needs to be done, other times you’ll scratch your head and have to retry, and still other times you’ll solve the puzzle without really knowing what you did to solve it. My suggestion would be to try the Single Game mode first in order to check out each of the puzzles on their own and practice before tackling them in the Story mode.
In any case, the puzzles remind me of those you might find in those Brain games that have become quite popular as of yet, except for driving and shooting of course. Wrapping them in a detective storyline makes them nicely contextual, but unfortunately they do feel bland. Still, if you have the urge to add on P.I. to the end of your name, Detective Puzzles is a nice starting point.
