by JustTheFacts Fri Jan 31, 2014 6:20 am
9 Clues [2]: Hallways Of Madness
Developer: Tap It (Artifex Mundi)
Totally Different Approach****
BASED ON BETA
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
With a simple yet arresting intro, we are launched into our role of Private Detective, in a game that is truly unique. This game is a sequel to 9 Clues: The Secret Of Serpent Creek, and if you loved that one, you’ll love this one too. It approaches the game of detective work in the same quirky way. Do not be deceived by the oddness of the graphics (which will endear themselves to you over time) into thinking this is an amateur production. It’s not. It’s a humorous, intelligent and original game totally unlike standard HOPAs, but retaining the character of an adventure lite game.
SIGHTS & SOUNDS
The graphics are indeed strange. The animation of characters’ faces (and there are a lot of characters in this game, 28!) is achieved in the weirdest way, and I’m at a loss to describe it. The face is sort of mobile while the head remains stationary. Somehow. Odd. But it is part of a package in which the graphics are goofy, colourful, imaginative and well formed, so maybe it’s just part of the nature of this game.
Lip sync! This game has it. Always a bonus, particularly with so much talking. Our player has her own voice, and it is wonderfully played. Other characters have their own accents and styles, each is an individual, and all of them are well acted. The sounds are well done, nothing too overt, and convincing crashes and screams. The music is a little repetitious for my taste.
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
A desperate call for help, by an unknown person, has you and your detective partner, Owen, off to an island everyone else seems to be in a hurry to leave. This is where Owen traced the call, to a mental asylum on the island. You barely arrive, when a person flies backwards through an upstairs window, and lies dead at your feet. Well, sure looks like there’s something worth investigating! Particularly when you realise this is the person who phoned you.
GAMEPLAY
Ah, truly refreshing to see a different style of gameplay! There are puzzles and HOPs, although less than average I guess, because there are other ways of tracking down clues. The HOPs are interactive lists, visited twice, but with the earlier items you took still absent – that spells class to me. And you have the option of playing mahjong instead of the HOPs. The puzzles are not hard, although they do vary a bit.
In detective mode, you identify objects in a room that might be clues, say footprints or a bloody knife, and as you identify each, it comes up in a list at the bottom that looks just like a HOP list. But instead, you are filling, not emptying that list. I suggest you play the first scene in the easier two of the three modes of difficulty available. They have the cursor glowing near the clues. Not all of them are as obvious as the ones I’ve mentioned. They are easy to find, though, once you get what it is you’re looking for. And after that, you’d probably want to do away with that help.
Once you have completed your list of clues, you assemble them in order of “arrival on the scene”, so to speak. That is, in the order they were left, created, or removed. This is a simple visual puzzle in which you place the “clue” tiles in order using a background design as reference. You then enter retrospective mode, in which you are given an animated and narrated explanation of what happened. It is really quite fun. And so you have completed your investigation of the first scene, and received your first of the nine clues featured in the title.
For the adventure side, you have a journal which breaks up into objectives, character dossiers, and the “9 Clues” you need to complete the game, which stores all important evidence. The hint system is directional, and you also have an interactive jump map that tells you next moves. It is not a difficult game to play, and some may find it too easy, even on the hardest level of difficulty, but it is enjoyable less for the challenge than for the sheer entertainment value.
BLING!
I do not believe this game will be released as a CE, but it does have quite a lot of bling! in the form of achievements and collectibles. Collectibles include: 9 hidden clue symbols (?), 9 pieces of a model of the asylum, and 15 phantom (morphing) objects. And there are achievements for all these plus a variety of story and performance based ones. They can be accessed from the options menu.
COMBINED IMPACT
What a delight! Fun characters, great and unique gameplay, professional production values, and collectibles!
I recommend this game!
Life is good 
)
