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.......................MyCatTilly Presents,
Plot
The Canute College storm tracking team is competing for a $100,000,000 grant, and it seems as though someone isn’t playing fair. Their equipment keeps breaking down, their base is overrun with mice, and their intern was seriously hurt out on the field. Nancy has been hired by P. G. Krolmeister, the owner of the team, to become the new intern and secretly investigate the suspected sabotage. Could the saboteur be from a rival team? Or does someone at Canute have an ulterior motive? It’s up to you as Nancy drew to find out.
The basis of the game sounds interesting enough. But, there were a number of times where it became too much about being an intern instead of a detective. On the other hand, you spend a surprisingly small amount of time tracking storms, and when you do, it just isn’t exciting at all.
Still, the story itself moves along quite well. There is actually some progression, and you come across motives and red herrings – all things a good mystery needs.
8/10
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Graphics
The backgrounds for the interiors look pretty great in my opinion. It was the exteriors that were a bit iffy. The corn outside of the farmhouse, for example, looks very artificial.
The character graphics (for everyone but Pa, for some reason) leave something to be desired. But, the people have become pretty expressive and there seems to be a little more variation in their movement. A nice touch. But what was with Scott’s beard?
Overall though, not a bad looking game.
8/10
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Setting
There aren’t a whole lot of places to really go. Basically you have Canute’s base (which is made up of a farmhouse, a barn, and a little outdoor area) and Pa’s store. I don’t know if it massively affected the game for me, but it really would have been nice to have another location or two.
And now, the driving. I have been a strong advocate against third person driving in the games, because I feel like it takes you out of the game. However, I do feel like the driving in TOT is the best incarnation of it so far. I still don’t like it, but I prefer it over the driving in CLK or RAN. It’s easier to navigate, and adding other cars into the mix adds a little bit of strategy.
4.5/10
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Puzzles/Activities
I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of snooping. A definite improvement
Now, I do not consider myself to be the type of person that needs things to be spelled out for them, but there were several times where I’d stop in the middle of solving a puzzle and just think “Wait, what?” I seemed to be on the phone with the Hardys almost constantly, or looking for hints on the forum. But it wasn’t that the puzzles were hard. (Actually, they were much too easy.) It’s that the goal for solving them was rarely clear.
There was also one puzzle that was very slow and boring, and yet you do it four times during the game. I’m convinced I spent more of my time on those puzzles then actually playing the game.
BUT despite this, there were a few unique, mildly amusing puzzles in the game. So, not a total loss on the puzzle front.
3/10 for puzzles, 8/10 for snooping.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Characters
I think this may be one of the most successful casts in a long time. They each have a personality, a back story, secrets, and a motive. Unlike some of the past games, I think it would’ve been very possible for any of them to be the culprit.
7/10
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Ending *Spoiler Free*
The ending comes abruptly and is so disappointingly anticlimactic. It’s easy, mindless gameplay, and quite frankly, it’s boring. On top of that, it’s nearly identical to a past ending.
However, I really liked the choice of culprit(s). It was the first time in a very long time that I’ve felt a little compassionate towards the bad guy(s).
2/10
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Overall
Let me preface by saying that I do not think TOT is a bad game. It just misses that mark in a few areas.
There is just not enough to do. I find it very telling that on day two in the game, after literally doing two small things, I was told to go to bed. Also, about halfway through the game, I did everything on my checklist. In the end, TOT took less than six hours to finish. And six hours for $20 is just not acceptable in my opinion. Just look at the box of an older game in the series, and you’ll see HER boasting about 20+ hours of gameplay. Whatever happened to that?
At the risk of sounding dramatic, TOT succeeds in ways that WAC fails, and fails in ways that WAC succeeds. In the end, both games have enough good qualities to make them worth playing but leave you (or at least, me) feeling unfulfilled. So the quality of the ND games now is decent, but there is plenty of room for improvement.
Overall score: 4.5/10
Creepiness (10 equals terrifying): 0/10
Difficulty (10 equals hair pulling): 2/10
"Should I buy this game?"
There isn't a single ND game that I wouldn't recommend. If you end up not enjoying this game, don't let that stop you from trying others in the series. There is a ton of variety.
Happy Gaming!
What I Really Thought:
ف
Trail of the Twister
Edition
ف
Trail of the Twister
Edition
Plot
The Canute College storm tracking team is competing for a $100,000,000 grant, and it seems as though someone isn’t playing fair. Their equipment keeps breaking down, their base is overrun with mice, and their intern was seriously hurt out on the field. Nancy has been hired by P. G. Krolmeister, the owner of the team, to become the new intern and secretly investigate the suspected sabotage. Could the saboteur be from a rival team? Or does someone at Canute have an ulterior motive? It’s up to you as Nancy drew to find out.
The basis of the game sounds interesting enough. But, there were a number of times where it became too much about being an intern instead of a detective. On the other hand, you spend a surprisingly small amount of time tracking storms, and when you do, it just isn’t exciting at all.
Still, the story itself moves along quite well. There is actually some progression, and you come across motives and red herrings – all things a good mystery needs.
8/10
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Graphics
The backgrounds for the interiors look pretty great in my opinion. It was the exteriors that were a bit iffy. The corn outside of the farmhouse, for example, looks very artificial.
The character graphics (for everyone but Pa, for some reason) leave something to be desired. But, the people have become pretty expressive and there seems to be a little more variation in their movement. A nice touch. But what was with Scott’s beard?
Overall though, not a bad looking game.
8/10
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Setting
There aren’t a whole lot of places to really go. Basically you have Canute’s base (which is made up of a farmhouse, a barn, and a little outdoor area) and Pa’s store. I don’t know if it massively affected the game for me, but it really would have been nice to have another location or two.
And now, the driving. I have been a strong advocate against third person driving in the games, because I feel like it takes you out of the game. However, I do feel like the driving in TOT is the best incarnation of it so far. I still don’t like it, but I prefer it over the driving in CLK or RAN. It’s easier to navigate, and adding other cars into the mix adds a little bit of strategy.
4.5/10
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Puzzles/Activities
I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of snooping. A definite improvement
Now, I do not consider myself to be the type of person that needs things to be spelled out for them, but there were several times where I’d stop in the middle of solving a puzzle and just think “Wait, what?” I seemed to be on the phone with the Hardys almost constantly, or looking for hints on the forum. But it wasn’t that the puzzles were hard. (Actually, they were much too easy.) It’s that the goal for solving them was rarely clear.
There was also one puzzle that was very slow and boring, and yet you do it four times during the game. I’m convinced I spent more of my time on those puzzles then actually playing the game.
BUT despite this, there were a few unique, mildly amusing puzzles in the game. So, not a total loss on the puzzle front.
3/10 for puzzles, 8/10 for snooping.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Characters
I think this may be one of the most successful casts in a long time. They each have a personality, a back story, secrets, and a motive. Unlike some of the past games, I think it would’ve been very possible for any of them to be the culprit.
7/10
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Ending *Spoiler Free*
The ending comes abruptly and is so disappointingly anticlimactic. It’s easy, mindless gameplay, and quite frankly, it’s boring. On top of that, it’s nearly identical to a past ending.
However, I really liked the choice of culprit(s). It was the first time in a very long time that I’ve felt a little compassionate towards the bad guy(s).
2/10
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Overall
Let me preface by saying that I do not think TOT is a bad game. It just misses that mark in a few areas.
There is just not enough to do. I find it very telling that on day two in the game, after literally doing two small things, I was told to go to bed. Also, about halfway through the game, I did everything on my checklist. In the end, TOT took less than six hours to finish. And six hours for $20 is just not acceptable in my opinion. Just look at the box of an older game in the series, and you’ll see HER boasting about 20+ hours of gameplay. Whatever happened to that?
At the risk of sounding dramatic, TOT succeeds in ways that WAC fails, and fails in ways that WAC succeeds. In the end, both games have enough good qualities to make them worth playing but leave you (or at least, me) feeling unfulfilled. So the quality of the ND games now is decent, but there is plenty of room for improvement.
Overall score: 4.5/10
Creepiness (10 equals terrifying): 0/10
Difficulty (10 equals hair pulling): 2/10
"Should I buy this game?"
There isn't a single ND game that I wouldn't recommend. If you end up not enjoying this game, don't let that stop you from trying others in the series. There is a ton of variety.
Happy Gaming!
I 
ne-yo!
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