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Her Interactive is well aware that we aren't the target audience for their Nancy Drew PC Adventure Game Series. We made sure they knew this, yet they still sent me a copy of Nancy Drew - The White Wolf of Icicle Creek for me to play through. They are very brave people.
Knowing I am probably the farthest from the target audience as possible, in order to give the Icicle Creek a fair shake I first had to get myself into the mindset of a teenage girl. After spending an hour drawing hearts with Crecente's name on them on the outside of a battered old spiral notebook, I felt I was ready to fully appreciate the life of a young female detective.
Our story begins, like all good detective stories, on my Windows desktop...
newVideoPlayer("faheydrew1_gawker.flv", 520, 410);And thus was the stage set. As Nancy Drew, I am invited to work undercover at the Icicle Creek lodge. Dangerous accidents, sabotaged properties, and explosions are followed by a mysterious white wolf appearing at each incident.
The game is a relatively standard adventure in the old school vein. Arrows to move from area to area, an inventory to manage, clues to guide you along, etc. Nothing too fancy, but for Nancy the mystery is the star, not flashing scene transitions or awesome 3D animations. I did not some near little touches as I explored the inside of the lodge, such as a newspaper with side stories about a man attacked by a wolverine and a sasquatch sighting. Going to give the developers the benefit of the doubt and chalk that up as a Marvel comics reference. Clever!
Now I am ready to venture outside, to see what lay beyond the dead-animal draped walls of the stuffy lodge. What would I find there? Danger? Excitement? Dare I say...love? I grasp the doorknob, heart beating wildly with all the possibilities, and then my cell phone rings. It's the lodge owner, and she's pissed. Apparently my undercover guise as her maid and cook, like great power, comes with great responsibilities.
newVideoPlayer("faheydrew2_gawker.flv", 520, 410);And that was it. I seriously couldn't bring myself to finish this mini-game, and I could see no other way to progress. Maybe I just didn't dig deep enough into my feminine side, but that would assume that women enjoy cooking and cleaning, and you know what? Just going to shut up about that. All I know is that after I was done I handed the game off to my mother, and she loved the damn thing. Go figure.
The White Wolf of Icicle Creek is just one of sixteen of this games, with another due out later this year. They are available in stores or direct download from Her Interactive, and despite some of my comments during that first video seem to be just the kind of wholesome fun that young girls need to keep them from turning into...average young girls these days. If you can catch them during that two week period between them wearing sundresses and calling you "Daddy" and getting their bodies pierced and calling their boyfriend "Daddy", you just might postpone the dreadful process for a week or two. Got to get your innocence where you can these days. Michael Fahey
[IMG]http://feeds.gawker.com/~a/kotaku/full?i=fpamsu[/IMG]
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Knowing I am probably the farthest from the target audience as possible, in order to give the Icicle Creek a fair shake I first had to get myself into the mindset of a teenage girl. After spending an hour drawing hearts with Crecente's name on them on the outside of a battered old spiral notebook, I felt I was ready to fully appreciate the life of a young female detective.
Our story begins, like all good detective stories, on my Windows desktop...
newVideoPlayer("faheydrew1_gawker.flv", 520, 410);And thus was the stage set. As Nancy Drew, I am invited to work undercover at the Icicle Creek lodge. Dangerous accidents, sabotaged properties, and explosions are followed by a mysterious white wolf appearing at each incident.
The game is a relatively standard adventure in the old school vein. Arrows to move from area to area, an inventory to manage, clues to guide you along, etc. Nothing too fancy, but for Nancy the mystery is the star, not flashing scene transitions or awesome 3D animations. I did not some near little touches as I explored the inside of the lodge, such as a newspaper with side stories about a man attacked by a wolverine and a sasquatch sighting. Going to give the developers the benefit of the doubt and chalk that up as a Marvel comics reference. Clever!
Now I am ready to venture outside, to see what lay beyond the dead-animal draped walls of the stuffy lodge. What would I find there? Danger? Excitement? Dare I say...love? I grasp the doorknob, heart beating wildly with all the possibilities, and then my cell phone rings. It's the lodge owner, and she's pissed. Apparently my undercover guise as her maid and cook, like great power, comes with great responsibilities.
newVideoPlayer("faheydrew2_gawker.flv", 520, 410);And that was it. I seriously couldn't bring myself to finish this mini-game, and I could see no other way to progress. Maybe I just didn't dig deep enough into my feminine side, but that would assume that women enjoy cooking and cleaning, and you know what? Just going to shut up about that. All I know is that after I was done I handed the game off to my mother, and she loved the damn thing. Go figure.
The White Wolf of Icicle Creek is just one of sixteen of this games, with another due out later this year. They are available in stores or direct download from Her Interactive, and despite some of my comments during that first video seem to be just the kind of wholesome fun that young girls need to keep them from turning into...average young girls these days. If you can catch them during that two week period between them wearing sundresses and calling you "Daddy" and getting their bodies pierced and calling their boyfriend "Daddy", you just might postpone the dreadful process for a week or two. Got to get your innocence where you can these days. Michael Fahey
[IMG]http://feeds.gawker.com/~a/kotaku/full?i=fpamsu[/IMG]
More...