[Review] Mystery Case Files: MillionHeir (Nintendo DS)

I have had a love/hate relationship with some of the hidden object mystery games that have come out for the Nintendo DS. There have been some awful ones (Women’s Murder Club, anyone?)! The problem with some of these games has not only been terrible story-lines, but that the game itself is not the least bit conducive to playing on the DS’s dual screen. So when I find a game that has a decent plot, and utilizes the DS effectively- AND it’s fun!- well, I am all over that! Mystery Case Files: MillionHeir is such as game, and if you haven’t played this on the DS, you are missing out, my friends.

In case you are not familiar with the Mystery Case Files series of hidden object mystery games,they are a series of 11 games so far which include such awesome games as the Wii-exclusive game, the Malgrave Incident (which I raved about this fall), and others that I have played in the past but have not reviewed yet, such as 13th Skull, and one of the best out there, Dire Grove.

In MillionHeir, you play a detective who is charged with investigating the disappearance of Millionaire tycoon, Phil T. Rich. You are presented with a list of suspects, and several scenes to search for hidden objects, and clues that incriminate or acquit a suspect. The scenes are easy on the eyes (for once!), and the gameplay uses both DS screens to their full potential by using the top screen as the wide-angle perspective of a scene you are searching, and the bottom screen as the extreme close-up of the scene. This means, you can actually see details of objects you are trying to search!

For a DS game, the quality of the graphics in MillionHeir was very impressive, too. Each scene was intricate, attractive and not cheesy. The only thing cheesy was how the characters were rendered in the game, but you only see them briefly throughout the gameplay.

The hidden object aspect is fun, as you are given some different tools to use to search the scene. For example, you are given a flashlight for when the lights go out, and a cool x-ray machine you can use to scan around and find other hidden items. The game is not simply hidden object, either. There are puzzles to put together, pieces of paper to gather, pictures to draw.

There are two modes of play – easy and difficult. The difficult setting has timed searches and only a few hints to pull from. The easy mode is a lot more forgiving – no timed searches and the hints increase with every scene completion.

Mystery Case Files has another winner in MillionHeir; an excellent hidden object mystery game for the Nintendo DS.  I highly recommend picking this one up!

Mystery Case Files: MillionHeir
Publisher: Big Fish Games
Released: 2010

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