Shocking plot twist: I like this game.

As a casual gamer, I do not have super-high standards. There are basically only three things I want to see in a Nancy Drew game:

1. Nancy Drew
2. A number of Laytonesque puzzles
3. Jokes, or something else equally amusing

Simply put, this game delivers on all three accounts, so I like it.

The game takes place in Oklahoma, with a crew of tornado chasers. They’ve been having a series of mysterious accidents, and Nancy has been called in to investigate, which is Standard Nancy Drew Plotline #4. Can she find out who is behind all the sabotage?

Shocking plot twist: Yes, she can.

There are five suspects in this game: Scott, Debbie, Chase, Frosty and Pa. They’re OK as far as characters go, but I don’t really like or dislike any of them. None of them really stick out in my mind. Maybe I’m just weird, but my two favorite characters in this game aren’t actually characters in the game. I like P.G. Krolmeister, who you can call but never see, and Brooke Savannah, who you overhear while snooping in a museum. Krolmeister is funny, and Brooke is mysterious, and I like ‘em both.

I want to say more about the characters, but I’m afraid of giving away spoilers like “the culprit ends up being Nancy Drew’s Aunt Eloise.” So I’ll be vague and say that every character is hiding some kind of secret. Nancy learns out about all these secrets, thanks to her awesome detective skills, then she jumps into Sassy Detective Accusation Mode™ for a series of dramatic confrontations that are fun to watch. It’s pretty awesome.

Chase gets defensive if you Nancy him a lot of questions.

Some critics have complained that the plot is bare-bones, and the characters exist just to give you puzzles to solve, instead of being necessary to the plot. My response? Awesome. I love puzzles. The more puzzles the better. And besides, the characters tend to be minigame/puzzle dispensers in every Nancy Drew game, so it’s not like their penchant for puzzles in this game is something new.

The plot has many abrupt turns, in that one day you’re going along, doing your thing and solving puzzles left and right, and then, BAM! You’re chasing a tornado with no warning whatsoever, and you’ve got to move quickly or else it’ll destroy Auntie Em and Uncle Henry’s farm. It’s a very dramatic way to shake things up. Personally, I think of this as grand metaphor for life in general. Life is like a hurricane…here in Duckburg. Race cars, lasers, airplanes: it’s a duck blur! You might solve a mystery, and that’s exactly what Nancy Drew does.

My favorite part of the game is not investigating the mystery or solving puzzles; it’s turning on the broken TV and catching up with Detective Beach. This is officially my new favorite TV show.

Announcer: Previously on Detective Beach…
Chief: You’re a loose cannon, McNorton! I want your badge and your surfboard on my desk immediately!
McNorton: Only one man would be crazy enough to use a shark to rob a bank…you’ve got to let me back on the case!

I have a hard time summarizing Nancy Drew games. It’s kind of a point-and-click adventure, and it’s kind of a whodunit, and it’s kind of a puzzle game. This installment of the series focuses more on puzzles, whereas the last installment, Warnings at Waverly Academy, focused on character development and the most shocking plot twist of all time. Both games are fine by me.

I think that’s a good enough summary of this game. It’s fine by me. I’m not going to call it the best Nancy Drew game ever, and I’m not going to call it the worst Nancy Drew game ever. I like it just fine.

The news, that is. Not the game.

That’s right, the next Sonic the Hedgehog game will be a 2D game, done in the style of the original series, which came out for the Sega…Jenny’s Sis. This is the next major game to be released in the style of older games in its series after Capcom’s upcoming Mega Man 10 (in which the Blue Bomber fights Dancing Man, Monster Man and The Man).

“The decision to restart the series in 2D was simple,” said Sega’s Vice-President of Marketing, Mr. Doodlebug. “It had nothing to do with Sonic, actually. We’re just trying to make it an industry standard for companies to continue series that have been dead for fifteen years. It’s all part of our master plan to force Disney to make DuckTales 3.”

Meanwhile, the Vice-President of Marketing for Disney Interactive, Mr. Doodlebug, said there is no way DuckTales 3 will ever see the light of day, because they have long since stopped airing good cartoons on the Disney Channel in favor of mindless nonsense like Phineas and Ferb.

He further went on to say that a DS compilation of all the NES-era Disney games would 1) Take about a week to make and 2) Probably sell over a million copies, like most of the NES Disney games did. Come on, Disney. You don’t need Uncle Scrooge to tell you that it’s a good business decision, by jingo!

• The new GameCola
• Save Points : good or bad?
• People are more excited for re-releases than completely new games.
• Some series (i.e. Sonic) get away with making millions off of bad games, just because of the license.
• Batman Begins is a franchise reboot, not a remake. I (Michael Gray) don’t really understand the difference.
• Live multiplayer is better than online multiplayer.
• Michael Ridgaway played the Ghostbusters game, tried to play Tales of the Abyss and is playing Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon.
• Zach wants to see a game with Bowser as the main character.
• Voice acting in the Mario games.
• Nathaniel Hoover is playing Tales of Symphonia, Dragon Warrior III and Final Fantasy VIII.
• Michael Gray is playing Nancy Drew: Ransom of the Seven Ships, Duck Tales 2 (both the NES and GameBoy versions) and Kwirk.
• Zach Rich is playing Pokémon Red, Sam & Max: Season One, Magic: The Gathering, Peggle, The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai, and Mass Effect 2.
• Everyone discusses the upcoming Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal.

Download

So to keep the other major Gaelic race happy, this month I’m talking about DuckTales. Starring the ever-Scottish Scrooge McDuck.

But is “awesome” the right word to use when describing my guide…? Not so much.

See, I wrote this guide five years ago, and looking back at it now, there are some things I did in this guide that I would not do nowadays. So here’s a brief retrospective.

The cross was cut out of the final version of the game.

1. The Story Section

When I wrote this walkthrough, I thought every guide had to have a story section. This is a problem when it comes to NES games, because half the time they have no plot whatsoever, and the other half of the time, you don’t have the manual. Which means I was stuck writing a story section when I didn’t know what the story was.

In the end, I made up the most general storyline I could think of:

002-Story
———————————————————–

Uncle Scrooge, the world’s richest duck, is going off on a
treasure hunt.  Cool!

…Looking back now, I’m pretty sure I didn’t need a separate section just for that thrilling plot recap.

I have this poster on my wall.

2. The Controls Section

For those of you who don’t know, some guides have a controls section, which lists all of the game’s possible moves. This is important for tricking the people who play Super Smash Bros. Brawl into thinking that there’s more to the game than just random button mashing.

Of course, control sections are overkill in NES games like DuckTales, because they all pretty much have the same control scheme. A = jump, right = move right, and so on. It was quite unnecessary, and I certainly didn’t need to list “attack left” and “attack right” separately. There is a payoff, however:

Down: Scrooge “ducks”.  Only works if Scrooge is not in
front of something that can be climbed.

…Looking back now, I’m pretty sure that I needed a separate section so I could use that pun.

Mega Man isn't the only non-linear Capcom game.

3. Double-spacing

I doubt anyone but me really cares, but when you look at the excerpts of my guide that I put in this article, you’ll notice that I double-spaced after every period. Because, grammatically, that’s what you’re supposed to do. You need two spaces at the start of every sentence.

Only the stupid Internet doesn’t think that’s the case, and when I leave a humongous 50-space gap in my HTML, computers interpret it as a single space. Lame!

So I purposely put two spaces after every period in my guide, just because it’s common Internet style to use single spaces. That was my way of sticking it to the man, with GRAMMAR!

…I’m not sure anyone noticed..

Actually, one more thing about my guide. Check out the ASCII art I made for this puppy:

                $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
              $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
            $$$$    $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
           $$$$$     $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
         $$$$$$$$     $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
       $$$$$$$$$$$     $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
      $$$$$$$$$$$$$     $$$$$$$$$$$$$$
     $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$     $$$$$$$$$$$$$
       $$$$$$$$$$$$$$    $$$$$$$$$$$$$
         $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
           $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$      $$$$$$
            $$$$$$$$$$$$          $$$$   $$$$   $$$
          $$$$$$$                  $$    $$$$    $$$
      $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$          $$$$$$$$   $$$$  $
   $$$$               $$$$$$$$$$$$$       $$$$$$$$$$
 $$$$    $$$$$$$$$$                   $$$$$$$$$$$$
 $$   $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ $$$$$$$$$$
$  $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$                   $$$$$$
$  $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$                       $$$$
$  $$$$$$$$$$$$$$                       $$$$$
 $$  $$$$$$$$$$           $$$$$       $$$    $$
   $$$$$$$$$$$$         $$$   $$$     $$$    $$
     $$$$$$$$           $      $$$$     $      $$
    $$  $$$$$           $        $      $$$$   $$
      $$  $$$  $$$$     $        $$$    $$$$$  $$ $$$$
   $$$$$$$   $$         $  $$$$  $$$    $$$$$  $$$$   $$
 $$$       $$$   $$$    $$$$$$$$  $$  $$$$$$$  $$$    $$
 $$   $$   $$  $$$$$$$  $$$$$$$$$ $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$    $$
 $$ $$$        $$   $$  $$$$$$$$$   $$     $$    $$$$$$$$$
  $$$$  $$     $$   $$    $$$$$$$ $$$$     $$$$$$$$$     $$
  $$$ $$   $$$$$$ $$$$$$   $$$$$$$$$$$$$ $$$$$$$    $$$  $$
  $$  $$  $$$$$$$ $$$ $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$      $$$   $$$$
   $$$$$$$$    $$$$ $$  $$$$$$$$$$$          $$$$ $$$$$$$
               $$$$   $$                   $$$$$$$$$
                 $$$   $$$$$            $$$$$$$ $$$
                  $$$$  $$$$$$$     $$$$$$$$$$$$$
                   $$$$$   $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$  $$
                    $$$$$$   $$$$$$$$$$$$$$  $$
                      $$$$$     $$$$$$$$$$$  $$
                        $$$$$$$        $$$$$$$$
                          $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ $$
                            $$$$$$$$$$$$

Made of dollar bill signs, no less. It probably took me longer to make that picture than it did to write the guide.