Nancy Drew: Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake Review

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            Nancy Drew: Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake

Review by TogerDecember 2002

“Nancy Drew. The Snoopy One …”

I worry about Nancy Drew.

She seems to be a rather intelligent young lady. Always has her wits about her. Logical of mind. Fleet of foot. So why then does she seem to attract all the weirdos? It would appear that every single person she comes in contact with either disappears or has something bad happen to him or her. Does she wear a sign that says, “only those with problems need apply”? Or is Nancy the cause of all that goes wrong in her acquaintances’ lives?  Food for thought, eh?

In Her Interactive’s seventh outing, our intrepid girl detective is helping her friend, Sally MacDonald, figure out why ghostly dogs are attacking Sally at her newly purchased cabin on Moon Lake. After inviting Nancy out to the cabin, Sally runs off in fear prior to Nancy’s arrival; thus leaving Nancy on her own to poke around. (If I were Nancy, I’d reconsider the friendship.)

“Things to Do, Places to Go, People to Pester …”

Nancy Drew: Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake begins with Nancy recounting, via letter, Sally’s leaving her high and dry at Moon Lake to her longtime boyfriend, Ned. (Snail mail? Where is Ned that he can’t take a phone call?) It’s definitely another mystery.  Ghost dogs have attacked Sally’s house every night since she moved into the place. Why? That’s where you, amateur detective, enter the story.

You’ll play Ghost Dogs as Nancy Drew, in a first-person, traditional point-and-click format. All actions are accomplished by the use of the left mouse button. Gameplay is offered at two difficulty settings, Junior or Senior Detective. If you get stuck, you can phone Bess and George or the Hardy boys for a push in the right direction.

Ghost Dogs is pretty linear, which isn’t a bad thing!  Certain things won’t be allowed, like turning over rocks, until you’ve triggered the appropriate event. The game does allow you to advance the clock by going upstairs to sleep and setting the alarm for AM or PM. The majority of your actions will take place during the day.

Speaking of turning over rocks, there is a maze. In the forest.  Actually, the entire forest is a maze. You will spend an inordinate amount of time in this forest. Get to know and love this forest.  Embrace it! On the upside, there is a map for the forest that updates itself with various landmarks that you find along the trails. I thought that was a pretty cool feature.

The majority of the puzzles in Ghost Dogs are inventory-based.  You’ll also find FedEx (fetching things for other people), fun with Roman numerals and how-does-this-clue-relate-to-that-clue puzzles, among others. I found most of the puzzles pretty fair, with the exception of opening the entrance to the speakeasy. You’ll need to enter the speakeasy from this particular entrance twice and both times you’re forced to rework the puzzle. It’s not an especially difficult puzzle, but it was time-consuming. Needless to say, I hated that puzzle!

“Are You Not Dead Yet?”

Should I mention that there are two timed sequences in this game; one of which is part of the end game? No? Okay, then forget I said anything.

How about knowing that you could die in this game? There are a number of ways in which you can die in this game: fire, falls and boating accidents; however, you’ll get unlimited second chances to try again. Or since you can save anywhere, you can reload from a previous save. By the way, just because you can save anywhere, don’t get carried away—there are only about eight save slots.

Solving the mystery will involve chatting up the locals, who of course are your suspects. The voice work was pretty good. I found it hilarious when Nancy would end a phone conversation with one particular character by saying, “Nice talking to you!”  and the character would reply, “I know.” Subtitles are provided for all speech and sounds.

Speaking of sounds—the sounds in Ghost Dogs were very well done. When the dogs attacked there was howling, yipping and snarling. Forest sounds were abundant and lifelike, while the wooden doors and dock creaked appropriately.

Visually, Ghost Dogs is gorgeous! The screens are static, 3D with some 360-degree rotation. When talking to the suspects, not only is the lip-synching superb, but they also blink and move their hands as they speak. The only thing the characters don’t do is change their facial expressions. The overlay of an actual photograph, of a view from a lake, on top of the graphic of Nancy motoring across the lake was very pretty.

I had one issue with the visuals: inventory items you find aren’t identified as you pick them up. I imagine it’s because most of the items are easily identified by sight. However, I picked up one item and for the life of me couldn’t figure out what it was, until it was automatically paired with another item I picked up later. It’d be nice if Nancy could tell me what it is she’s seeing and picking up.

“Ever Yours, Nancy”

Ghost Dogs isn’t a bad little game and deserves the FFC thumb up! It’s the perfect game for a beginner just starting out or an experienced adventurer looking for a mystery that isn’t too tough on those “little grey cells.”

For me, Ghost Dogs was reminiscent of reading one of the novels, only with lots of pretty pictures. I was a voracious reader of Nancy Drew books as a kid. From those books I grew to love Christie, Chandler, and Grafton, to name just a few. I think of the Nancy Drew games in the same vein—a springboard to bigger and better games.

So, grab your magnifying glass and PDA and come on out to Moon Lake for a spell. Just don’t let the dogs catch you wandering about after dark! The End

The Verdict

The Lowdown

Developer: Her Interactive Publisher: Her Interactive Release Date: November 2002

Available for: Windows

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Screenshots

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System Requirements

Windows 95/98/Me/2000/XP 16 MB RAM 160 MB free hard drive space 16-bit color graphics video card 16-bit Windows compatible stereo sound card 8X CD-ROM drive Mouse and speakers

Where to Find It

Links provided for informational purposes only.  FFC makes no warranty with regard to any transaction entered into by any party(ies).

      Copyright © Electric Eye Productions.  All rights reserved.  No reproduction in whole or in part without express written permission.

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14 Responses to Fear Factor

  • Fear Factor | Tap-Repeatedly.com | Reality Topics Blog

    […] nobody@flickr.com (graftedno1) wrote a very interesting post today.   Here’s a quick excerpt:My greatest fear is to be trapped alone in a confined space with a blind human, in total darkness. They have a heightened sense of smell and hearing, and. […]

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    Lewis, you made me think of the scariest moments I’ve experienced in gaming, and we’re very similar people.

    Bioshock had two moments – the dentist and the flooded room filled with mannequins.

    Thief had Return to the Cathedral, which was terrifying to me. Thief 3 had Shalebridge Cradle, which is so scary it ought to be fined.

    System Shock 2 kept me on the edge of my seat, but it was more lonely panic than true fear.

    Korsakovia was so scary that I uninstalled it.

    And STALKER. Oh, god, the haunted labs in STALKER. The latter two games don’t have scares like that. Few games do.

    It’s especially rare for a game to have more than mere “moments” – for a game to be scary from beginning to end, that’s a triumph.

    Wonderful article. As if Gregg’s review wasn’t enough to convince me that Penumbra is not something I have the courage to play!

  • DPenn

    I’m with you Lewis … I’m a bit of a puss. I just have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of dread as entertainment.

    Still, I’m drawn to dark stories when they have something interesting to say, whether it’s a game like Thief or a film like, say, Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible. So I’ll push through, sometimes peering through my fingers.

    The trouble with games, though, is that if you look through your fingers, you’re probably just going to have to play through the scenario again. :~)

  • Mike "Scout" Gust

    I wanted to play this game. I downloaded the demo but the controls were just too wonky for me to get my head around. I liked the atmospheric vibe a lot. I think I’m a bit desensitized from an overdose of horror movies in my youth so I don’t so much get the dread thing from these games as a nice creepy vibration. If only the controls were better…

  • Lewis B

    @ Mike, what’s wrong with the controls bud? As someone who despises poor control schemes, Penumbra’s is just like any other FPS, except to examine things you right click on them.  To use things you left click.  I’m not sure that can be considered difficult 🙂

  • Gregg B

    @Steerpike: Yeah my greatest shit-scared moments were with those games too. A few spoilers below people, so beware.

    Bioshock – Haha, I remember the dentist. I didn’t really find the game that scary overall but the bit where you go into the wine cellar and notice a mannequin facing the wall and after upgrading your weapon it’s stood directly behind you motionless and quiet just for a moment before attacking you. I shat a brick. I also missed that bit originally until Lew told me about it.

    System Shock 2 – same as you really, more unremitting tension all the way through rather than specific terrifying moments. Oh actually, theres a bit where you call a lift and it breaks then you realise a service droid is coming to fix it… I do remember having sleep issues after my first encounter with the cyborg ninjas though.

    Thief: The Dark Project – The Sword and Return to the Cathedral and Down in the Bonehoard and well, loads of them. The Sword made me break out into goosebumps though because there was a bit where you could hear this creepy giggling which seemed like it was following me about then it suddenly changed to this horrible throaty noise. What made matters worse was that the EAX (bless you Creative) made my foot steps sound like somebody else was there with me. That level was incredible, a bit too incredible as it seems I missed great chunks of it because I was so eager to leave.

    Thief II: The Metal Age – Trail of Blood where you end up in that opening with those damn tree beasts. God the first time I saw one of those hurtling towards me I actually died shortly afterward. Do you remember that Mechanist child walking around on one of the levels? That was a little creepy.

    Then there’s Penumbra: Overture – quite a few bits but I’m not mentioning them here.

    Oh and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. – The brain scorcher lab just because it was so damn quiet. My imagination seriously got the better of me there. Those stuffed animals and heads I’d seen in various buildings led me to believe that those creatures were lurking somewhere in the Zone, specifically that lab.

    @Mike: My control setup was perfect after some tweaking (as well as the simple weapon swing fix). If you ever fancy giving it another go, give me a shout and I’ll let you know my setup.

  • Lewis B

    I’m not sure why guys, but one of my starting paragraphs had gone missing, even though I copied it straight from the original source, and It was fine earlier. 

    Incase you missed it due to some technical issue you might want to re-read just after “Well no she wouldn’t in truth, but in Penumbra: Overture you don’t want to move anyway.” at the very start for those who’ve already read the article. Apologies 🙂

  • Mike "Scout" Gust

    Lewis, it was the weapon swing. It had this terrible, unresponsive feel to it, like trying to hit through molasses. I couldn’t stand using it. I tried the .ini fix as mentioned in the review but it didn’t seem to help. Of course this was the demo…but that shouldn’t have made any difference. I might try the second game instead as I guess they did away with the weapons thing.

    I’m see your first paragraph just fine. It’s the dialogue, right?

  • jdeuel

    I like the argument that weapons can remove fear, but even loaded to the teeth with ammo in AVP’99 the Marine missions were frightful because the enemy was anywhere at any time.

    As for Penumbra Overture, if the controls are anything like the original Penumbra they need to hack in some Wii-Remote 3d controls. I did not like using my mouse for 3d movements.

  • Gregg B

    @Mike: I’ve read that many people avoided conflict altogether in Overture which incidentally is something forced upon you in Black Plague. As somebody who has been renovating a house over the last 6 months with no DIY experience I can safely say that swinging a hammer is significantly easier in real life than it is in Overture without the fix. The fix balanced that for me.

    I’d highly recommend completing the first Penumbra because it’s one big build up to Black Plague which spoils the ending to Overture in the intro. And it’s a great ending too. Just so you know!

  • Lewis B

    @ Steerpike, those moments you mention are all my worst too!!  Do you remember the Robot labs in SS2? Absolutely terrifying, waiting for robots to burst out on you! 🙁 oh and have you ever player Condemned?

    @ Mike, The use of weapons in Penumbra is different to say HL2, where the player is physically holding the weapon, as in Penumbra it floats slightly infront of you.  However, if you change the control method to normal weapon swing, it’s no different!  Speak to Greggi and he’ll tell you what to do 🙂

    @ jdeuel, AVP the original and its sequal were scary however what type of fear do you think it is? I don’t think it’s anything more than sheer tension.  Having a Smart Gun makes you feel incredibly powerful.  I can honestly say in Penumbra the fear is sheer unrivalled terror, where you actually have to force yourself to play on.  It genuinly is that scary! 🙂

  • Jason Dobry

    It’s so true, an arsenal of weapons and ammo rapidly deflates any sense of horror or uneasiness in any game for reasons you already mentioned. Sakey, I thought Bioshock was more “lonely panic,” while I was pretty much always terrified in System Shock 2. I really, really, REALLY did not want to enter The Many’s nursery, and my weapons were so unreliable and ammo so scarce that I never felt safe.

    Silent Hill was terrifying for the same reasons. Ammo was rare and I frequently had to rely on my pipe for self-defense.  Even when I had ammo, the game mechanics prevented my character from being anything other than marginal with any firearm.

    Fear had one moment for me: I was climbing up a ladder, and as I reached the upper platform, my guy briefly looked down as he climbed off. As my perspective looked up again, that Ring-esque little girl was RIGHT THERE, reaching for me. I screamed and she was gone.

    What else…the original Aliens vs. Predator sent me into a locker room and I could only hear the facehuggers scurrying about somewhere within. I had to go in there. I advanced about three steps before the damn thing screamed and filled up my screen with its repulsive underside as it implanted me with its spawn. My roommate made fun of me for weeks for screaming like a girl child.

    Korsakovia–meh.  I was too annoyed and frustrated by the box rearrangement/jumping puzzles to be scared. I uninstalled it after an hour of play, I think. Maybe the scary parts were later, but I doubt it.

    As for Penumbra, I did play through about half of it before other games distracted me. I remember unease and creepiness, but no sweaty fear. I think I’m to blame here, or, more precisely, my daughter, who was still an infant at the time and generally allowed me only to play during the day for 45 minutes at a time. I was denied total immersion and the fear effect suffered. Maybe I should give it another go after I finish Call of Pripyat since she sleeps through the night now. With any luck, Penumbra will keep me from doing the same.

  • Gregg B

    I played the demo of F.E.A.R. but that ladder scare is the only bit I remember. Christ, that made me jump. I’m not too good with cat scares.

    Also I felt exactly the same about Korsakovia. It was creepy at first but then it began to irritate me far too much and it just soured the experience. I stopped playing as a result. Not to mention, when I realised I could bash those smoke-things with my crowbar they didn’t bother me nearly as much.

  • Online Up

    Great article. I look forward to reading more in the future.

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