Strange Cases: The Lighthouse Mystery
The Lighthouse
Mystery reminds me of the X-Files as it contains all the elements
of one of their stories that includes a dead FBA agent, a
mysterious ghostly apparition of a woman and a missing scientist. With all the
right elements to a Noire type story, players take control of
FBA agent Claire Ellery who awakens from a dream to discovers
that her partner Tom is dead with everything she dreamt being
real.
With suicide
believed to be a precursor, you need to hunt down the alleged
killer of Tom as you follow his clues by collecting items in the
game to solve a variety of puzzles. By using the notes of Tom,
these will require you to find specific objects in a variety of
different areas from scientific laboratories to apartments and
other eerie locales.
As with all hidden object games, searching
for your clues can be quite difficult and if you do become
stuck, the game does offer some assistance. There are some
mini-games along the way and interactive items that must be
used in conjunction with other items or things from the gaming
screen to progress. It's a fun game but unfortunately was a
little too short for me... a seasoned veteran of these games.
Graphically, The
Lighthouse Mystery looks great on our PC with some wonderfully
designed locations and characters. Some great attention to
detail went into the creation of this game from the lighting to
the careful locations of the items. Add that with some
professional voice acting and a very ambient styled soundtrack
with a touch of X-Files and this is one of the better hidden
object games.
I had fun playing this game, even though at times, I became
quite frustrated with the clues or direction that I was meant to
go in. Thankfully there is a hint system that should only be
used when in doubt... like breaking the glass to get the fire
axe. It's also great that developers cater for the non-gaming
market, more specifically the casual market with these fun
games. Even though you'll probably only play it once, it is a
game that you can come back to another time to see if you can
beat your record in solving the Lighthouse Mystery.
