Playtime: 3-4 hrs
Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆
[b]Criminal Archives: Alphabetic Murders Collector's Edition[/b] is a point & click puzzle mystery hidden object game by Do Games Limited.
[b]Plot summary[/b] - Local constable Melinda Watson asks your help of solving murder which you quickly realize is connected to two other murders in the area. You are set to investigate the murder of young actor Collin Cox in the theater stage. More you investigate, more you seem to understand that these killings weren't completely random. You are met with strange masked man, who you are ought to catch. I'm not going to explain the plot from the extra chapter, because i never played it and i'll explain the multiple reasons why later in this review.
First of all, i'm going to say [b]this game has several flaws[/b] why i just can't justify myself to recommend this. [b]Game mechanics[/b] are little bit off in my opinion, when you do some tasks it takes way too long to finish and i'm not generally the impatient type of a player. Like for example in the 'cut scene' after hay bale puzzle, why i need to see when the person takes every single hay bale out one by one? Could have just been that couple out and rest puff or whole stack moves as an unit. Same goes for the scenes where you build something in your inventory, you put all the 'ingredients' there and the game just pauses for a second before doing anything. They are not crazy long pauses, but really noticeable nonetheless and unnecessary.
There is [b]multiple spots where the items you have to use to progress in the game make no sense[/b], like when there is fallen tree in front of you which seems seemingly small that you could just easily walk over it with little to no effort the game requires you to get a tool to cut the tree out of your way. I would understand the situation that you can't go over it if the tree is big or you would want ride car over it, but cmon you could have drawn it way bigger in that case. Also to give an another example, when there is the net you need to unravel you use knitting hook for it. In reality knitting hook can't cut net like that nor do you need hook to unravel knitted item. You have chest with broken knob piece with only metal rod left, you have to use tweezers to open it, even tho in reality they probably would slip from the slippery metal surface and you could do it easier with your fingers since the rod isn't that small to grab, if it were realistic i mean. You have some items in your inventory you could easily use to do some task, like when you have a pitchfork with long wooden handle and same time you have box floating in a small pond. Can you use the long object to push the box towards you? No. You need to knit a net for it and pitchfork is only for the hay bales (That you can't move with your hands like in real life people could do.).
Things like this happen occasionally in this game, but i'm not going to list them all. There was multiple difficulty levels, which is nice so you can choose from them. Overall game play wasn't that hard and things were pretty straightforward, if you don't count the flaws that made it harder.
[b]Hidden object scenes have multiple words that don't mean anything or are far streched[/b], specially in the kitchen fridge one. What is shaiRd? taME? It took me some time to understand they were words, but with letters mixed. Could have stated or implicated that somewhere before. HO's took me way longer to finish just because i had no clue what i was even looking for. I give this game a plus that it had different kind of hidden object puzzles though, there was find pairs, find by name and find by shape ones, some of them had items that you had to craft in order to get what you were looking for, i like when there is things like that. Also i think that there were zero repeated HO's like some of these type of games have.
I didn't bother to play the extra chapter and just uninstalled the game after the main one, since there were so many problems in the game that it didn't feel that fun to play. [b]Plot[/b] itself in my opinion wasn't that interesting to make the game more enjoyable, it was basically cookie cutter same plot that multiple games like this use.
Main menu has extra stuff, like wallpapers, all the mini games and puzzles, achievement list and spot where you can see what collectibles you have collected etc. It's always nice when there's something extra to look at. [b]Achievements were interesting choice[/b], why make achievements at all if you ain't making them on steam too? I like to play games in hopes of getting all the achievements on steam, this didn't have any and i knew it when i bought the game, but was surprised that there was achievements inside the game. Someone can tell me if they know something, was this published on another device or something first and they just posted it to the steam without thinking too much? There was multiple collectibles that were easily missed, tho there was indicator that blinked if there was collectible to be seen which made it easier to get them, but sometimes you just didn't notice them. You don't need to play the game twice to get all the achievements, so i think that is a plus in my books.
[b]Positive things[/b] i can say is that i liked the art work and style, music was decent and voice acting wasn't completely awful. Actors had some emphasis in their tone and it wasn't spoken that monotonic what some games i have played have had. Game itself doesn't take that long so i'd say it somewhere around 3-5 hours.
[b]Price[/b] of this game isn't that high if you compare it to the Artifex Mundi games which without sale roll around the 15 euros, but with so many flaws i would not recommend buying this with 6,89 euros (7,49 USD). I don't recommend this game, but if someone really wants to play it because the artwork or something, i would wait it come to a huge sale, preferably more than -50% off.
I could ramble from this game so long and list all the flaws i noticed, but i think i got the main points written here.
[b]Pros[/b]
• Artwork
• Music and ambient sounds
• Voice acting
• No repetitive HO scenes
[b]Cons[/b]
• Multiple typos
• Solutions that make no sense
• Delay on some actions
• Dragging 'cut scenes'
• Pricey for a game with so many flaws
Story
□ Bad
☑ Could be better
□ Decent
□ Good
□ Enjoyable
□ Immersive
Artwork
□ Bad
□ Could be better
□ Decent
☑ Pretty good
□ Beautiful
□ Amazing
Soundtrack
□ Bad
□ Could be better
☑ Decent
□ Good
□ Immersive
□ Eargasm
Minigames difficulty
□ Toddler could solve
□ Easy
☑ Medium
□ Advanced
□ Hard
□ Had to check on google
Overal gameplay difficulty
□ Toddler could solve
□ Easy
☑ Medium
□ Advanced
□ Hard
□ Had to check on google
Audience
□ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Young adults
☑ Adults
☑ Seniors
