Being a fan of all puzzle games, I was curious to see how James Noir’s Hollywood Crimes for the Nintendo 3DS would challenge my puzzle solving skills. Would I become quickly bored just solving puzzle after puzzle or would the game be able to draw me into its puzzle web? These were the two questions I have for myself when I decided to take on this review for the Canadian Online Gamers Network.
Once you fire up the game, you are introduced with a slick little introduction that had me intrigued. The opening commentary which stated: “everyone plays a starring role in their own death” grabbed my attention and I was curious what would come next as frankly I knew nothing about this game going in. Being a fan of mysteries, especially when I get to solve crimes, I was happy that I would get to play the role of a crime solver and the game opening was nicely executed.
You begin the game by finding yourself as a contestant in a 1961 game show called “Incredible Puzzle Masters”. Once you find yourself winning the show, a series of disturbing crimes take place. An FBI agent comes along and solicits your help in solving these murders. The murderer is leaving a trail of puzzles near each of the victims. Here is where you jump into action solving the games 142-puzzles. In nutshell, that is the plotline and purpose of Hollywood Crimes for the 3DS.
I am fairly critical of crime solving games; however, Hollywood Crimes does have a nice premise. This game was different from many others crime solvers I have played recently. In Hollywood Crimes you are not looking for clues, interrogating suspects or examining evidence as you would in games of a similar ilk. Instead you solve puzzles which provide you with information you need for the next scenario or merely provide you with the needed information you need for the current scenario. In any event, I found Hollywood Crimes a nice welcome compared to other crime solvers/puzzle games on the market.
So how do the puzzles play out in Hollywood Crimes? Overall, I found the puzzles themselves to vary greatly in their difficulties. I had considerable difficulties with many of the math related puzzles, so those ones aggravated me. I didn’t find the other puzzles overly difficult; however, they did get trickier as the game progressed. I do readily acknowledge that math is not my strength and much of the difficulties I had was with the math related puzzles. Otherwise the rest of the puzzles were quite varied and if you did get stuck the game offered up some hints. Unfortunately, you only get so many hints, so use them only when you really need them. Just keep in mind the hints at times are not all that helpful and can be a puzzle in and of themselves in some instances. Some of the hints can be like riddles and can leave you frustrated fairly quickly. Despite this, I did found it satisfying solving these particularly difficult puzzles.
The progression through the game flowed well and never left me wondering why I was in the situations I was in. Most of the puzzles were quick solve and the game moves along at a nice pace. As I mentioned there is a decent amount of variety. Whether it be moving a shape around until you could see a number or connecting lines, the puzzles never really became repetitive and offered up some nice challenges for gaming on the go. You do however have to solve one puzzle to move on to the next which was a bit of a letdown. So if you get stuck on one puzzle and are unable to solve it, it is pretty much game over.
In terms of the game visuals, the opening scenes had me intrigued as to what the rest of the graphics would look like. The scenes were very clear, and the 3D effects popped off the screen. As for the rest of the games visuals, Hollywood Crimes is passable as they barely push the limitations of the 3DS hardware. That said, I was somewhat impressed with the level of detail and the overall look suited this puzzle game quite well. The puzzles themselves looked good, especially when played with the 3D slider turned on. I found though that I couldn’t stay in 3D for long as it tends to make me slightly dizzy. The games themselves looked good even when played without the 3D slider turned on. What I did like was that when returning to the game after having turned it off you were treated to your progression to date in the form of short “movie clips”. It was fun and made you feel like you were the star in an ongoing series. As for some of the negatives, the load times were far too long and occurred far too often. I found myself frustrated that I could not get on with the game as I was waiting for it to load to the new puzzles or situations.
Overall, the sounds in “Hollywood Crimes” for the 3DS are decent. The soundtrack that played during the game show portion sounded like a typical soundtrack of a TV game show. I’m not a fan of game show tunes, but recognizing this was the objective, they were well done. The one flaw I saw was that the characters mouth movements were not always synchronized with the sound bite. That is one of my biggest pet peeves, so it always jumps out at me when it occurs. The rest of the game sounded good. The sounds were geared towards the time era of 1961 and reminded me of watching TV shows cast in that time period. The characters voices were clear and you could easily understand everything that was being said.
Given I have not played too many fantastic puzzle games on the 3DS I was pleasantly surprised with James Noir’s Hollywood Crimes. That said, the games frequent and long loading times, and the less than helpful hints will inevitable frustrate those who pick up the game. Yet, James Noir’s Hollywood Crimes is pretty good bang for the buck and those looking for some enjoyable and challenging puzzles for their 3DS then James Noir’s Hollywood Crimes may be for you. Just be aware that this “Teen” rated game is geared more towards older teens and adults who have a hankering for crime solving puzzles.
