Nancy Drew: The Silent Spy review - With spy gadgets galore, the teen. Aside from the games on your phone, you'll have to make cookies to. Nearly a decade ago Agent Kate Drew left home to neutralize a biochemical weapon in Scotland. While her assignment was a success, Kate died in a car accident.
By Jenny100IntroductionNancy Drew has made a career out of solvingmysteries. Occasionally she faces danger - especially when she'sdiscovered the identity of a perpetrator or when she's uncoveredinformation that's worth money - and the perpetrator feels it's intheir best interest to shut her up. But I can't remember any previousNancy Drew game where a major city full of people, and ultimately eventhe world, depended on Nancy's uncovering an evil plot and living totell the tale. The Silent Spy has a more serious plot than previousNancy Drew games. Even the title 'Silent Spy' is serious - it'sexplained in the game as meaning 'dead spy,' referring to Nancy's motherKate. Kate was killed in an automobile accident - or so Nancy hadalways believed.Nancy's mother was killed 8 years before the startof the game.
So while Nancy was still a child at the time, barely havingstarted school, she does have some memories of her mother. From time totime during the game, often while Nancy is traveling by train betweenlocations, Nancy has flashbacks of her mother - playing the piano,arguing with Nancy's father, trying to reason with a pre-adolescentNancy.StoryThe game begins with Nancy receiving a mysteriousphone call, asking her if she wants to find out what 'really' happenedto her mother. Nancy knows her mother died in an auto accident, butuntil now never suspected it wasn't an accident.
Of course this is onemystery Nancy has a personal stake in, so she's off to Scotland toinvestigate. There she learns about the terrorist organization calledRevenant, and how her mother thwarted their attempt to unleash abiological attack on Glasgow as prelude to using it elsewhere in theworld. Designed to be non-lethal to the bulk of the population, it wasintended to be severe enough to incapacitate the city long enough forRevenant to replace the government. The attack was stopped by Kate Drew,but Revenant had their revenge on her. After remaining dormant foryears, Revenant is once again rearing its ugly head. The plot is morefar-reaching than your average Nancy Drew game, where only a few peopleare affected by her success at mystery-solving.CharactersSome of the characters in the game include AlecFell, who hangs out in the train station, Bridget Shaw, who claims to beenamored of things American, Moira Chisholm, an old friend of Nancy'smother, and Ewan MacLeod, who is Nancy's 'contact' at the spy groupcalled 'Cathedral' (the same spy group Nancy's mother belonged to). Ofcourse in a game full of spies, with such high stakes involved, peoplemay turn out not to be as they first seem.Nancy's telephone contacts include her father,Carson Drew, and her boyfriend Ned.
Ned proves useful early in the game.Later in the game, Ned gets to be kind of a pain because he emails Nancyat the worst possible times and her phone clamors for attention.Game EnvironmentMost Nancy Drew games include information about thepart of the world where she's investigating. This was very well done inthe previous game, Ghost of Thornton Hall, where Nancy found out manydetails about the history of the family and the Civil War by readingbooks and old letters she found around the old mansion. In Silent Spy,this aspect seemed a bit forced.
Nancy learns about 'traditional'Scottish food at an outdoor deli next to her hotel. She learns about the'culture of the Highland Games' in the training area. But theselocations aren't terribly well integrated with the rest of the game.Overall the locations in the game did not seem particularly Scottish atall. Even Loch Lomond could have been any old lake with a rocky shore,and you only see one view of it.I was a little surprised Nancy never attempted tovisit the site of her mother's 'accident.' Not to look for blood or tiretracks, but to get an idea of the lay of the land and how likely it wasthat there would be an accident there. It would have been an opportunityto see the Scottish countryside.The locations Nancy does visit are rather limited.They are mostly indoors, except for the deli area outside the hotel andthe outside view of a house or cabin before you enter. Nancy doesn't seeany Scottish castles.
She doesn't even get to go inside the Scottishpub. Poor Nancy.InterfaceThe Silent Spy uses point-and-click controls, justas previous Nancy Drew games do. Inventory is located along the bottomof the screen.
You can scroll the inventory to the left or right byclicking and dragging a little slide button at the top of the inventorybox. Nancy's checklist appears when playing as Amateur Detective.
Hercell phone includes a camera, phone numbers for Ned and her Dad (CarsonDrew), and email.PuzzlesMany of the puzzles have to do with decipheringclues. Of course, first Nancy has to find the clues, and thisoccasionally involves breaking into someone's room, which in turninvolves figuring out the best way to do this. Often equipment isneeded, though equipment isn't necessarily something that Nancy can justfind laying around. But sometimes another character just hands it overto her, though only after she's done something entirely unrelated.Some things require money.
Nancy finds money layingaround throughout the game. When her eyes are too tired to spot theselittle heaps of coins, she can earn money by making elaborate layeredcookies with jam, icing, and cutout sections. Cookie making isn't thatdifficult, though the amount of money you make depends on how fast youmake them. It could be considered a 'chore,' though it's not as tediousas some other chores she's had to do in past games.There were many timed puzzles in the game.
Some ofthem would have been difficult even without a timer. For example, apicture of a plaid design, where you have to overlay stripes in theright order to create the correct pattern.
It was hard enough to seewhich lines were 'over' and which were 'under' in the tiny picture youwere supposed to match (and decide which lines to lay down first)without being under time pressure. After running out of time 3 times, Iused a walkthrough. There were other puzzles where you are under timepressure too, like the bomb diffusing puzzle at the end. Even with thewalkthrough, in some cases I could barely click fast enough. It took allthe fun out of the puzzles to be rushed like that. Yes you have the'second chance' when Nancy messes up, but it's no fun to be stuckrepeating the same thing over and over when you're not fast enough. I'msurprised HerInteractive doesn't put a 'no timer' option in the gameoptions.
Many casual games that use timers provide the option to turnthem off. Since HerInteractive has begun imitating casual games in otherways, like the inclusion of a 'bonus' edition with 'achievements,' whynot add the much more useful 'untimed version' option?Voice actingI wouldn't know a proper Scottish accent if it upand bit me in the #$@! So I can't say whether the accents were accurateor not. I can say that the accents were not so thick that I couldn'tunderstand what was being said. I especially liked the performances forCarson Drew, Moira, and Kate Drew in the flashbacks. I thought theyshould have gotten a real child to voice the child Nancy, who soundedmore like a teenager than an 8- or 10-year-old.ExtrasThis is the first Nancy Drew game I've played thatwas a 'bonus' edition. The 'bonus' includes 'awards' or 'achievements'for things like finding all the phone charms, or having Nancy use thezip line a ridiculous number of times, or having her sample every typeof food in the deli, etc.
I suppose this type of thing must be ofinterest to some Nancy Drew fans or HerInteractive would not include it.But it was of no interest to me and I thought it was 'gimmicky.' Ienjoyed occasionally finding an Easter Egg (accompanied by a chickensquawk) in earlier Nancy Drew games.
But I think all this 'achievement'stuff is overdone. IMO there's no reason why an adventure game seriesshould try to copy a gimmick that's overused to the point of beingannoying in casual games.Miscellaneous CommentsIf you've ever wondered what Nancy Drew looks like,at one point she says she sees her mother every time she looks in themirror. You see flashbacks and pictures of Nancy's mother, Kate Drew, inthe game so we can assume Nancy looks something like that.Nancy remained her usual cheerful, plucky selfthroughout the game.
If she felt any sadness about the situation, missedher mother at all, or felt angry about her mother being betrayed ordeliberately killed, she kept it to herself. All that seemed to matterto her was the mystery - and when there is a mystery to solve, Nancy ishappy.