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Sunday, November 02, 2008 |
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The Hardy Boys: The Hidden Theft
By Knowledge @ 4:41 PM :: 1974 Views ::  :: PC
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I have mixed feelings about this game title. On one hand, it's a standard point and click adventure, and this is an expansion to a series of titles based on the same game engine and style of play. So people who know these games have some idea of what they are and how they are played, so they know what they are getting themselves into. On the other hand, the game engine is lousy, and the puzzles are far beyond reach for anyone, especially a young player, to grasp and have fun with.
That is the crux of my issue with The Hidden Theft. In that the game is too difficult for anyone to figure out. I would openly challenge anyone to play this game without a cheat or hint in front of them and see if they were capable of defeating it. If they were, it would take months of trial and error. Does that mean it's a challenge, or a problem with the game design? Either way, it's hard to say this game is for kids.
Essentially, you play as both of the Hardy Boys. Something has been stolen from the local mansion, and an apparent innocent man is about to go to jail for something he says he didn't do. The Hardy's try to help by asking questions, picking up clues, and solving puzzles. It's your standard point and click fare where you move from area to area trying to figure out what to do. The Hardy's have the innovative approach of being able to be in two places at once, so you can solve puzzles apart as well as together.
Games like this aren't graphic affairs or filled with action. It's essentially an interactive story book where you try and solve puzzles to move the story forward and help solve the mystery. Each area presents a challenge, but figuring out what you're trying to do is the real problem with this game.
To get my point across, I'm going to ruin a piece of the puzzle here, so take this as a spoiler alert. Early in the game, you talk to someone who says their safe had been robbed. Each morning they write the safe's combination on a piece of paper, open a window, and then shred the piece of paper after telling it to someone else. (This kind of logic is pervasive in this game, so just accept it.) At which point, you are walking around the grounds interviewing people, picking up clues, and looking at different things.
At one point, you find a car, and you can slash the antifreeze with a piece of glass to make it leak out of the bottom of the car. You don't know why you can do this, it doesn't advance the story here, it's just something you can do. There's a shredder, and in the shredder is a shredded piece of paper. You can take that and do nothing with it. You can also find a full sheet of paper outside next to a plant. Good luck even finding it though. It's placed in such a location that makes it extremely difficult to locate. You also find a wedge to keep a door open.
Ok... Now among the various things you can interact with is an old grandfather clock, a safe, the desk, the shredder, the car engine, underneath the car, the door, etc. And you can talk to the daughter of the suspect, the father, the police officer, and the accuser. You can also call people on the phone, and you can combine and decombine items you have collected to help solve puzzles. You just have no real idea what goes together and what doesn't, so you spend most of your time clicking on things endlessly to see what they do. And while you MAY think there is logic to it all, at one point you might combine your parrot with your cellphone as a delivery mechanism. So if that seems at all logical to you, you will surely enjoy this game. For the rest of us, we'll just click on things to see what kind of madness the authors have put together in their own mind that doesn't follow real world logic.
Somewhere during all this combining and trial and error, you have to perform the following task and figure it out completely on your own. First... You put the wedge in the door to the office. This keep the office door open. Why would you do this? Who knows? You just know that putting the wedge into the grandfather clock doesn't work. Nor does putting it under the car tires. You then walk into the room, and put the blank piece of paper on the desk. Why? Oh, you'll find out, as soon as you leave the room. Because a big breeze then comes in and blows the piece of paper out the window.
From this, the Hardy Boy's decide that the caretaker is innocent because the guy writing the combination down must have opened the window and allowed the piece of paper to fly out the window where someone could have found it.
This might be barely logical, but the game doesn't tell you what you're after. Had the game said something like, "I bet the cominbation blew out the window, I wonder how we can prove that? It might have made a hell of a lot more sense. As it is, the game progresses and you have no idea what you're even trying to do. Which makes it agonizingly slow and difficult.
Later in the game you'll have to look at charts and arrange balls to form the chemical composition of aspirin, among other things. You'll have to provide evidence to a class mate (If you can find her) that will tell you more clues that you can give to the police to help find the guy you are looking for.
But the game never helps you out with its cumbersome interface. For instance, at one point you find a blond wig with black hair in it. You don't have the slightest clue what you're supposed to do with it. The police don't want it, and your lab friend doesn't want it. It turns out that if you double click it in the inventory it will divide into two things, the wig and the black hair. But NO WHERE does it tell you this. You have to go online and cheat to get a clue as to what you're missing. You'd never figure this out on your own unless you just went crazy and started double clicking all the items in your inventory in a rage.
Other problems exist like when you go see the barber and ask him about the suspect. He tells you that he probably left a business card in the bowl. You find his card, and then leave. Again, wandering around the city talking to people and not having a clue about what you're supposed to do now that you have this guy's business card.
Amazingly, after I cheated and looked up the answer, the solution was to go back to the barber and ask him about the guy AGAIN! Even though you have his card, because this is how the game advanced to the next stage. Why the game couldn't do this for me, or have the game advance after I walked out of the barber shop is beyond me, but it has to come down to lazy programming.
This game wasn't play tested. I don't believe for a minute that anyone who had a kid that was 10 years old (As the rating specifies is the youngest age you can play) sat and played this game without cheating and won. I don't believe that you could find someone who is 20 years old, and would sit down and play this game without cheating and win. Not without enormous patience and a strong love of the Hardy Boys because this game was designed to be frustrating.
I really didn't want to go into this review and bash the game because I understand adventure titles. And I understand that they are slow, and methodical, and require puzzle solving and deep thought. But the Hardy Boys: The Hidden Theft is a game that wasn't well thought out. It doesn't present its puzzles in any logical way, and doesn't provide guidance to a young audience who will not have the patience to deal with the ridiculous design flaws present in this title.
There is a fine line to draw between clever puzzle and frustrating exercise. The Hardy Boys have both. Using the rubber gloves to trap the gas to be used in a police experiement is a clever puzzle. Using the flathead screwdriver to unlock another toolbox located somewhere else to get a philips screwdriver to unlock a grate is a frustrating exercise. Unfortunately, too little thought and playtesting went into The Hardy Boys to make it clever and fun, and more effort was put into making the puzzles overly difficult. I often think, this is the result of project managers or developers who tend to cater to the 1% of their audience who find the games "Too Easy" and want to make them more difficult as a result. But it makes the games inaccessible to the mass audience that would make such a game a larger success. All of which could be found in playtesting, which is something I have to believe was missing from the development of this title.
I think, The Adventure Company has the potential to make a good game with these characters. Many of their puzzles are quality. However, they need to adjust the guidance and clarity of what it is the characters are after, and improve the interface to show the user where they might want to look next. Unfortunately, in this era of forum cheats and game guides, game content creators don't often realize or feel that they need to dumb-it-down. But if you're going to make a game for a younger audience, of which this is one, then that is exactly what they should be doing.
As it stands, I would not buy this game for my son or nephew. It would be too difficult and frustrating for them to play. I will keep an eye out for future titles from The Adventure Company and see if they improve on their game design, because there are quality elements here with good voice acting, and good music, and clever puzzles, it's just not a complete package and needs more refinement to make it accessible and therefor fun.
5 out of 10
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| Comments |
 By
Kaci @
Thursday, November 27, 2008 11:10 PM
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hey, i can't get past frank and joes mother at the beginning when they are trying to get the keys to the motorcycles. The game and the mouse kind of jolt could you possibly give me some advice on this, it is very frusterating!
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By
Amanda @
Monday, January 05, 2009 7:56 PM
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Kaci,
Same here -- I cannot even get past the first part with the keys! Driving me nuts!
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By
Amanda @
Monday, January 05, 2009 8:22 PM
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Well, Never mind -- finally got the keys. No tricks, just had to do it quick enough.
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By
Olga @
Wednesday, August 05, 2009 6:53 PM
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I wish I saw this review before starting to play. I'm still at the part where they have to get the keys for the motorcycle as well. Maybe I would be willing to keep trying if there was an option to skip the scenes (as most games do have), since that takes up so much time but I think I will just give up. This is ridiculous, considering it is just the beginning and I can't do such a simple task. One would think with these kind of graphics it would be easier, but I had an easier time with more "adult" games (i.e. sherlock holmes) than this.
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By
abhi @
Monday, January 25, 2010 7:13 AM
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By
soha @
Monday, January 25, 2010 7:42 AM
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