Having liked the book series, I wanted to try a game from it for a while. Nancy Drew might be a paint-by-numbers affair, but its tropes always intrigued me. Granted, nobody's in real danger, the obvious suspect isn't the culprit, and characters are fairly wooden & one dimensional, but the series' settings always intrigued me. They're the one thing that keeps me willing to read some more. Sadly, the setting of this game isn't very interesting. Maybe because you can't really venture outside. Sleuthing inside a manor, as large as it is, gets stale after about a day spent there as the character. There are some quirky characters, but they're expectedly one dimensional, and the game being set in England they have that obligatory over-the-top English accent. But what I really don't like about this game, is its design, or lack thereof. Curse of Blackmoor Manor just feels hastily and shoddily put together. The look of the game is jarring, the voicework isn't very convincing, and the game consists of a series of a hodgepodge of puzzles that don't seem that related to the plot. Granted, this is a Nancy Drew game, but she might as well be replaced by any other child sleuth. Not having her two best friends with her - I suppose to keep costs down, she just doesn't feel like Nancy Drew. The plot is also too weird for a Nancy Drew game, and makes the setting feel as if designed with a different character in mind. It doesn't help that progression in this game is achieved by playing countless mini-games unrelated to the plot, or by characters simply giving you the solution you need. There's no real sleuthing to be had. But my biggest gripe is with the interface. This game is of the slideshow variety, meaning you click your mouse to advance from picture to picture. It can be made bearable, but here getting from A to B, despite seeing B in the distance, is quite a chore. Simply going from the 1st floor to the 2nd meant countless clicks, invisible walls & a maze-like path selection.
Having a knack for buying computers with partial support for OpenGL, Direct3D and the like, I never really played any modern games before playing Chaser. I know Chaser isn't exactly modern, but I was excited to escape DOS games and play a modern shooter. Sadly, despite its interesting premise, it quickly becomes repetitive. It seems that despite having missions in various locations, ranging from an island to deep space, most missions take place indoors. Meaning that no matter where you are, everything looks the same. And despite the high variety in mission locations, all you really do is move from room to room shooting people. It's fun for a few missions, but quickly becomes stale. The game does change later on, but only for the worse. Like when you're asked to act stealthily in a game that has no real stealth mechanics, or when you're given an escort mission. That escort mission gave me flashbacks of playing this game before, only then it was called Time Crisis, and I played it in an arcade. The game does try to avoid being an arcade corridor shooter by having smart enemies - ones that hide & change location when they're hit, but they do it in such a predictable way, they might as well stand in the middle of the room. Also due to bad design or bad AI, you can hurt enemies without them ever knowing you're attacking them. It seems enemies won't spot you through windows, or see you peeping down corridors, giving you ample time to aim and shoot. You can also shoot through solid objects - such as shooting through the roof and hitting the people standing on it. Their shadow bleeds through the roof, making them easy targets. A bit of story might have saved this game from being mediocre, but cutscenes are so long, sometimes stringed one after the other, I usually skipped them. After all, the game is so linear and confined, the plot doesn't really matter. Walk from A to B shooting everyone in sight. It is fun, but it was more fun in the arcade, wielding a light gun.
