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Beware of Her Interactive

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 12 / 38
Date: June 19, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I should preface my remarks by saying that I have not bought nor played this game. However, I have bought every game prior, and the last few have been progressively worse. As many will confirm, the earlier Nancy Drew games were incredible. They were great adventures/mysteries. The last few games -- I thought I would give HI once more chance, but would wind up feeling I had wasted my money. The games were boring, pointless, uninteresting and dumbed down. I think this happened when Dream Catcher parted with their company -- for reasons which are unknown.

The poor quality of the games would not be much to gripe about. Clearly the company needs time to get back on firm footing again and to find its voice and style. They have been "readjusting" for several games now -- all at the expense of customers who shell out hard earned cash only to be disappointed.

My many concern with this company is its poor customer service and lack of integrity. Consider the boards on Her Interactive. Post a negative review on a game -- and you will likely find yourself abused in insulting, condescending terms by Her Interactive's own moderators. They will also ban your account of filter your posts -- allowing themselves to review the posts of anyone who might write something negative or honest -- and deciding for themselves whether they will post your review or not.

To me, this reflects lack of integrity and dishonesty -- and is more than just about protecting market share. If the game is flawed or if people have different opinions, let them speak their minds. What is the point otherwise of a review board? People have their own preferenes -- and may like some games or dislike others for reasons unique to them. The company has an obligation to allow people to discover this for themselves. What is the value of a review board if only positive reviews/reviewers are allowed?

Instead, they try to silence critics. They will even go onto different boards and attack people and intimidate them, and I suspect the snotty comment against Northern Girl for commenting on tech problems was a HI employee. That is exactly the type of conscending and rude comment HI staffers make against anyone who offers anything but glowing praise of a game.

Notice that limited help is given for tech support issues -- and that refunds are not granted for games which are not compatible with one's computer system. HI was negligent in not publishing all of the specs its games require for effective operation -- and incredibly dishonest about not allowing refunds or replacements when games inevitably don't work. They withhold information -- to drum up sales and then refuse to honor refunds when their misleading/withholding information creates problems for their trust patrons.

It's further interesting that once positive reviews came out about ICE on the boards -- the company site put a link to the reviews on its front page. Then, as soon as people began complaining about tech issues, poor quality of games, and other matters -- suddenly the message board is "updating" and ensuring that no more posts will be allowed -- or will "accidentally" be erased until this process is complete (How ironic this is happening after the release of the game and peak selling period!). When I saw that, I rolled my eyes and thought "yeah, right, 'updating'." That's exactly how cynical I am about HI.

While I have always enjoyed Nancy Drew games -- minus the few most recent releases, I told myself I would take a wait and see approach for this last game. If the reviews were stellar, I'd try it out and give HI one more chance. A few were -- but then more are coming out about HI's tech problems, poor public relations, that the game freezes in portions -- or that it is so poorly set up that people are erasing over old games by accident and having to start again, or that the clues are presented as such that no one can determine who the culprit is until the end. What is that about? Shouldn't the player be able to discern who the culprit is based on evidenec and their own ingenuity? Instead the game engages in an elaborate shell game/smoke and mirrors, throwing in misleading clues, etc. so you can't determine anything until it happens at the end. Others have had problems with the final scene -- in some cases, a chase which runs into hours -- due to technical glitches...or games which simply never end.

Her Interactive is just a vast wasteland now as far as I am concerned. I wont' buy this game, even if there are some amusing/interesting parts, as there are just too many problems with the games. While some of these could be overlooked, the company's poor treatment of its patrons does not inspire my loyalty or concern. In fact, it does quite the opposite.

Careful! This game won't work on older computers. No returns.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 13 / 24
Date: June 13, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is probably a very good game, but I wouldn't know it because . . .

while all the other Nancy Drew games work fine on my computer, this one won't play. It turns out that I have the wrong kind of driver. One of my computers won't do anything; the other one has a totally scrambled picture. I can't return the game since it's opened (except for the exact same game, which won't help).

You should check the tech support page of herinteractive.com (Post titled "Driver Card" ) and follow the instructions to see if it will work on your computer before you buy it. Considering that I just threw $18 down the toilet, I thought I would warn others who don't have the newest computer. For me, the game stinks.

I hope you can get the game to work on your computer. It looks like fun.

Tedious, Tedious, Tedious!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 11 / 17
Date: June 25, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have to be the the lone dissenter here. I really didn't like this one. I hated it almost as much as the Royal Tower. The tasks are redundant. As mentioned by another reviewer most of the things you need to do have to be done during daylight but you've also got to keep track of times to do your chores which eats up a lot of your daylight. You are constantly resetting the clock and sleeping. I also found a lot of the puzzles tedious and boring. The fishing portion was just tortuously long and boring and took more patience than it was worth. The end scene felt the same way. At one point I almost didn't finish the game because the end scene is so looooong that I lost interest. The end scene felt like it was written by a teenage boy who really loves video games. I typically enjoy the Nancy Drew series because you have to use your brain, not so much with this last scene. I'm not one for traditional video games so this just rubbed me the wrong way.
They should release a patch to shorten that last scene. Who wants to spend 30 minutes on an ending?? Possibly my game was just flawed because I don't see anyone else complaining that the ending took them 30 minutes from the time they left the last location. I tried restarting it a few times just to see if I could shorten it but to no avail. This is my least favorite of the series. I hope they go back to thought required endings again rather than mindless video game endings. I was really disappointed with this whole game.

Cannot rate...doesn't work on my computer

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 18
Date: June 14, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have never had a problem with any of the other Nancy Drew Mystery games (I own them all) except for this one. I can load the game unto my computer, hear voices and sound effects, see some text at the bottom of the screen, but everything else remains black. No video. I am VERY disappointed.

This game is the first in the series, that will NOT work with Older Windows

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 8
Date: July 07, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have played every Nancy Drew game, until this one, which after buying it, will NOT work on Windows ME. The Her Interactive website basically says that they are no longer supporting any of the Older Windows, only XP and Vista. This is very sad, as I will no longer buy the games. Beware to anyone who expects this one to work, as the rest did.

Not worth the frustration

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 7
Date: July 14, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have played every Nancy Drew game and was completely irritated by this game. Some of the activities involved no thinking but took an extremely long time to finish while allowing for no quick way to complete. This game takes an extreme amount of patience to the point that it is not even fun anymore. Many of the clues were disjointed and difficult to obtain plausible conclusions. It is by far my least favorite, even liking the Kapu Cave and Danger and Design better even though they were not exactly my favorite either. I am shocked at the number of positive reviews of this game and I am hoping that none of the rest are set up with mind numbing tasks and repetitive errands like this one was.

Save your money

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: December 19, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I've played all of the Nancy Drew games with my daughter, and this is by far the worst. For one, although we were able to play all the other games just fine, this one suddenly required a memory upgrade to play. After the upgrade (thanks Her Interactive for thinking of us parents!), plus updating all my drivers and video cards, we finally get to play. And boy was that an enjoyable experience! The story is terrible, and the game is tedious, if not annoying. The characters are all unlikeable, from the hired hand who spends the entire game working on a foot trap for a wolf (nice touch!) to the self-absorbed owner of the cabin who puts profits before people (great message). My daughter, who has played all the games, became frustrated many times, as she was stopped from progressing in the game, for some arbitrary reason (a phone call needed to be made or she had to follow a specific order). After one tedious task after another, we finally make it to the end of the game. Then we "enjoyed" a snowmobile chase that took at least hundred times of mind numbing repetition to get to the final scene and completely hokey explanation. Finally, the mystery is completely third-rate - there is absolutely no motivation for the villain, and nothing in the game seems to lead to anything mildy resembling a coherent solution.

Save your money. This is the turkey of all turkeys.

Love Nancy Drew games, hated this one :(

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 20, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I have played the majority of games in this series. I love them, they are my guilty indulgence, but this one left me cold. 2 of the challenges were darned near impossible, and in fact by the time I got to the snowmobile race I was fed up and didn't even bother to finish. If I want to do chores there are plenty around the house,I don't need a game for that. Seriously, it's as if they ran out of puzzles and plot material so they got lazy and substituted that annoying cooking drill over and over. I haven't given up on Nancy Drew yet but if the Venice episode is like this one I just might!

Not that great

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 18 / 24
Date: June 30, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I was really looking forward to this game. I played the demo version beforehand and liked the new layout. Though I don't understand why a new game just starts every time you run it, instead of giving you SOME kind of opening screen to load a game, start a new one, etc. No other game I've every played has done that. But, whatever, it's not a big deal. I also had no technical problems with the game, though it sounds like many others did.

However, this game was absolutely boring. And very tedious as another reviewer stated. Repeatedly having to stop what you are doing and cook meals 3 times a day was just too much. I resorted to saving my game immediately after the meals, and then if nothing was accomplished before the next meal, just reloading the saved game and starting from there. It saved me from having to cook quite as much. There is very little character interaction, very few puzzles, and the ones that are in there are either too easy or beyond frustrating. I mean, come on, you have to beat that horrid fox and geese game 3 times?! Is HI running out of ideas? The one puzzle I did like was the skating pond puzzle. It reminded me of playing Minesweeper. And I didn't even bother finishing it - I got so sick of the snowmobile chase at the end after repeated attempts and what seems like hours, I just gave up and quit.

On another note, I just finished playing Secret of Shadow Ranch again, which demonstrated to me how far downhill these games have gone. That game was so much better that any in recent memory. Come on, HI, get your act together!

Not So Hot!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: July 16, 2007
Author: Amazon User

My 5-year-old daughter and I just finished Kapu Cave, which we both enjoyed playing together. My daughter was then looking forward to this newest release. But...

Firstly, it wouldn't run video at all (only audio) on our older laptop which runs XP. Very annoying start to say the leaast! We borrowed my husband's...

Then started playing - er, cooking...tediously...MANY times a day...completely interfering with our progress in the game. After a couple of days, we finally just stopped playing White Wolf, and my daughter hasn't asked about it since.

We hope the next game doesn't involve tedious "chores." We have enough of those already. Give us some real clues!

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