Nancy Drew: Ransom of the Seven Ships Review

 Nancy Drew and the Ransom of the Seven Ships might not appeal to adults at first, but the game is more complicated than a player might expect. It provides challenges for its intended audience and older fans of the adventure game genre. Her Interactive has produced nearly 30 games in this series.

Nancy Drew: Ransom of The Seven Ships takes Nancy and her friends on a free trip to a resort in the Bahamas that they won. Upon arrival Nancy discovers that one of her friends has been kidnapped. The price of release is for Nancy Drew to solve a mystery that has been stumping people for hundreds of years.

Nancy Drew and her friends must uncover the mystery surrounding the long lost treasure of a Spanish fleet that disappeared in a storm that struck the Bahamas over a century in the past. This story line does seem a little ridiculous to be taken seriously and this is the way the adventure was designed. Nancy Drew: Ransom of The Seven Ships will put you in unusual situations that are funny and challenging.

You'll need to solve interesting puzzles that don't involve any real danger or feeling of menace. Search the island for clues with a host of simple but challenging obstacles in your way. Fix the golf cart you use to travel around the island. Meet interesting and useful characters who can help you if you help them solve a problem. Complete reflex-based puzzles that require you to sail around the island and scuba dive with a metal detector looking for clues. The game pla a ormula still works after twenty games, but you might want to keep a pen and paper near by to take notes.

Nancy Drew: Ransom of The Seven Ships does not really have much of a mystery for a mystery game. Few clues solve the actual puzzle and the events are not always related. Driving the golf cart, while fun, does not add much to the overall game experience. The musical track leaves a little to be desired. Action games don't normally get produced with a large budget, so the gamers might want to overlook the cheesy music.

Gamers cannot judge the graphical standards by the same standards which they might judge Bioshock or Fallout. Bioshock's beuatiful art deco artwork adds to the feel of the game. Because Her Interactive wants the game to run on as many systems as possible, the graphical quality is lower. With that in mind, the designers did an extremely good job with this game. People do not play adventure games for the artwork normally, they want to experience the puzzles and the story.

Basically, don't expect The Mighty Mighty Bosstones or whoever your favorite band is to do sound tracks for video games. If you have a slower computer, the game may skip a track or two. Most players solve this problem by reducing the number of applications they run in the background.

Even if you are not a member of the target audience, this is a solid adventure game. It may not always have the same level of challenge as Grim Fandango or the Sherlock Holmes games might, but it is not intended to appeal primarily to adults. The storyline, while not original, hearkens back to many of the same story lines people might remember reading as a teenager. Men wanting their favorite detective duo can check out the similar Hardy Boys series.