Runaway Express Mystery

I didn't experience any of the game-breaking bugs that others did, although it was a little laggy. I thought the story was decent, and the acting was good. I agree with others that the puzzles were a little on the simple side. It was entertaining though (I like HOG/point-and-click games and play quite a few).

Tags: Adventure - WC - Hidden Object Additional Tags: Delete Local Content & Remove from Library TLDR: Do casualized minigames around a train. Not worth spending time into. Not an Artifex Mundi product.

[b]Pros[/b] +60FPS (with some annoying stuttering) +Great, detailed artwork +Runs on high-res monitors with no problem +Fast travel +Some puzzles good (wanted more of them) [b]Cons[/b] +Crime solving became a chore +Little user interaction (see paragraph above) +Anticlimactic ending A somewhat enjoyable HOG, Runaway Express Mystery adds a little crime solving into the mix. As usual, the typical HO boxes are checked. Mother trying to save kids, evil man, puzzles, bad voice acting, HO scenes, etc. Your playthrough is mainly on this very large train. There are some stops along the way that help break things up. As you make your way through the train, 3 ghosts are looking for help as to the cause of their death. Help them, and you get a seal to unlock the next part of the game. The crime solving part unfolds itself as your progress in the game. Clues are given to you and you place them on a board to connect all the dots. There is no skill needed, all clues have specific spots for them. The crime solving also makes its way into the HO scenes. You can use a magnifying glass, flashlight, fingerprint duster and blood detector spray in each scene to collect the appropriate objects. However, the magnifying glass and flashlight are used only once or twice. The fingerprint and spray you can just hold your mouse down and spam the screen. There’s no skill needed. The actual objects you need to find are displayed as silhouettes instead of the usual word description. The scenes shouldn’t cause you much trouble. Overall, the crime solving was a little difficult to follow. The character jumped to conclusions and the pace seemed rushed. The puzzles were good and I wish there were more of them. The mirror tracing of a shape stood out as unique. Again, these puzzles won’t give you much trouble The artwork is fantastic. Everything is detailed, high-res and period appropriate for the 1920’s. Definitely a step above average. One of the biggest gripes with the game is there’s not much player interaction. Let me explain. There is lots of continuous blind clicking. Some examples: Locks open themselves when you drag the written down combo over them. Sheet music played itself. Keys filed themselves. Pencil made faint words appear just by clicking a few times. From playing many HOG’s, I was expecting to manually finish some of these tasks but everything was just automated I also had a strange hitching (stutter) in the game. Happened frequently even when just moving the mouse around the screen. [b]Conclusion[/b] Hmmm, hard to recommend this. Again, I wish there was a “in the middle” option on Steam. So, I’ll say this: fans of the genre should play it, but otherwise there are better HOG’s out there. [b]5/10[/b] Average