Reviews

The adventure genre is mostly gone from the commerical world; ne'er more shall there be huge releases of games where you click on things, solve ridiculous puzzles, and generally be fustrated by logic. Instead, it's up to the smaller studios to fill the void, with games such as Mystery Case Files: Dire Grove and Hidden Expedition: Devil's Triangle. Since both games are really very similar, I'll just cover them both in this one review.Published by QV Software, developed by Big Fish Games and aimed squarely at the casual market, Dire Grove and Devil's Triangle are unapologetic forays into the adventure gaming field. Both stories are servicable but nothing huge to write home about; Devil's Triangle has you searching for a crashed companion in the Bermuda Triangle, while Dire Grove traps you in a snowbound village, with a mysterious abandoned car and a trail of fragmented videotapes to follow.Showing their roots as descendants of seek-and-find type games, both adventures take place from a visual-novel type perspective, as you move from screen to screen, pointing and clicking on items of interest or to activate a minigame or puzzle. Gameplay takes the form mainly of 'seek and find' segments that have you looking for cleverly hidden items, standard adventure game inventory puzzles and a huge variety of weird, often unique puzzles.There's an impressive array of puzzles on display in both games to test your mettle. From grid rotation, pattern-spotting, and jigsaws to code sequencing and riddles, as well as more unique and difficult conundrums, you'll run into all kinds of challenging problems that'll muck with your mind. The difficulty curve is very well balanced; challenging enough to actually make you think, but not frustratingly obtuse like many of adventure game ancestors. If you do get stuck, there's always the handy-dandy hint system to instantly solve a portion of the riddle for you - which might not actually be your thing. Both games enjoy fairly witty writing, but unfortunately much of the best writing isn't actually in the game proper. Instead, it's been stuffed into the depths of the journal, which leads to a bit of a disconnect from the actual game. It's slightly disconcerting to not get so much as a peep out of your nameless protagonist at a particularly complex puzzle, but to open up your journal and discover masses of scribbled notes, elaborate diagrams and highlighted hints.Much of the humour is playfully self-referential, with your nameless protagonist complaining about the ridiculous amounts of puzzles present in whatever game you're playing. Which only really serves to highlight the contrived nature of almost every puzzle in either game. Some are more logical than others - unlock a door with a blowtorch, say, or figure out a combination lock through a quick numerical code deduction. Others are just ridiculous. Why would anybody lock their toolbox with a sliding tile puzzle? Or make the completion of a stained glass window neccessary to open a door? Laughing about these kinds of things is funny, sure, but it doesn't make these issues disappear.Both games are extraordinarily pretty, with well-made, hand-drawn, colourfully vivid art and animation. Similarly, the soundtrack is absolutely solid, ambient rather than forward and generally suited to the mood. Devil's Triangle has some slightly clunky animated sequences and generally amusing conversations, but Dire Grove eschews this for some surprisingly well-acted FMV, which goes for a 'Blair Witch' style approach to telling the story of what happened before you arrived on the scene.Both games will take roughly around four to five hours to complete for the adventure gaming buff, and probably longer for the nine-and-up target audience the sticker on the back says they're aiming for. Either way, very pretty artwork, a solid soundtrack and writing, and some nicely challenging puzzles make for a solid, enjoyable adventuring experience for those hankering for a little bit of nostalgia, or for kids itching to test out their brains.Powered Up:
Huge variety of challenging puzzles, solid production values, fairly enjoyable writing, acting and voices, budget titles!
Played Out:
Some puzzle integration, best writing disconnected from actual game.Overall:
Two solid titles in the oft-neglected Adventure Genre, all for a budget price!