Safe Cracker - Nintendo DS
I’ll be honest, I’m not really one for DS puzzle games, whether that’s because I’m thick, impatient or perhaps both, I am not sure.
Quite frequently, I find myself sitting there, scratching my head and screaming at my DS , calling Dr Kawashima all manner words that I cannot repeat on family friendly website like this.
Needless to say, this doesn’t put me in the greatest position to review a game that prides itself on being “the ultimate puzzle adventure”.
Developed by Kheops Studio, Safe Cracker puts you in the shoes of a….. that’s right, you guessed it, a safe cracker.
The game tasks you with finding the last will and testament of Duncan W Adams, the recently deceased CEO of DWA Petroleum.
Naturally, being an oil tycoon who has recently found one of the worlds largest deposits of crude oil, he was quite a rich man and all of his descendents are eager to get a slice of the cash filled pie.
That’s where you come in – hired by the Adams family, you have to search his estate for his will.
Unfortunately for you, old dead Duncan was an eccentric who liked to keep important documents, such as wills, clues and tools, in the kind of safe devices that you would only find in a James Bond film.
All sorts of elaborate and incomprehensible contraptions are scattered through out his home.
For the most part, the puzzles do keep you entertained, however on occasion they can be excruciating hard – this is not helped by the lack of clues that are provided to you.
In fact, come to think of it, there aren’t even instructions as to what you should be doing, no help button, no tips, nothing – you literally have to work it out for yourself.
This problem is further exacerbated when you manage to crack open a safe and within it, is a clue that is often so vague and cryptic, it makes you wonder why you are bothering.
If the game was to reward you with sensible clues and become gradually more difficult, I would understand. However, “Safe Cracker” fails to ease you into the process and pretty much punishes the gamer from the get-go with some rather harsh puzzles to solve.
For a game that is rated “3 and up”, yet I can’t see many toddlers playing this. As I said, I know that I am not the brightest bulb out there, but I like to think I am smarter than your average infant.
Apart from the main campaign, the game also offers the player a chance to do previously solved puzzles up against the clock. Each time you solve a puzzle during the course of the main game, it is unlocked for the time trial section.
Graphically the game is rather uninspired, with a presentation that harks back to the adventure games last seen on the likes of the Amiga and Atari ST. The environments are static and you navigate yourself from room to room, using the touch screen controls.
With each view point you are given the option to investigate items, using the spying glass, this will reguarly sometimes present you with one of those random and impossibly cryptic clues out there.
As for the sound, it’s pretty much what you would expect from the DS, there’s not much action going on so it’s nothing too exciting (a door opening here, a safe beeping there). The music is rather suitable and does do a good job in raising the tension a little bit.
This game is really designed the hardcore puzzle solver. With it’s lack of accessibility and a warm welcome for those not too familiar with the genre, it is unlikely to appeal to the average gamer in the same way other puzzles games have.
Verdict: 5 out of 10
The Good:
Lots of puzzles
The Bad
Far too hard
