Interpol: The Trail of Dr. Chaos
Verdict: squintiful
In a Nutshell: Interpol: The Trail of Dr. Chaos is a collection hidden object games tied together with an international dective/spy theme.
“Track down the evil and destructive fugitive Dr. Chaos, as you hunt down clues in the exciting seek and find game Interpol: The Trail of Dr. Chaos. As an elite agent for Interpol, it is your mission to eradicate his trail of corruption as it takes you around the world from one international city to the next. Use your investigative skills to quickly gather the evidence needed to bring him to justice.”
- Fun Rating: Sorta Fun
- ESRB: E
- Players/Mode: single player/campaign or 2-4 player co-op / campaign.
- Game Duration: 3-8 hours
- System: XBox360 (XBLA)
- Developer: Tik Games
- Website: http://www.tikgames.com/xbox/InterpolTheTrailofDrChaos/tabid/67/default.aspx?id_game=427
- Cost: 800 Microsoft Points
- Demo: available on XBLA
| Would I play this again? | probably not |
| Would I recommend this game? | yes but with disclaimers |
| Was the story good? | not particularly |
| Was the music good? | was o.k. |
| Were the graphics good? | yes but not made for my display |
| Was this game difficult? | yes |
| Was this game frustrating? | yes, because of the display |
| Was this game offensive? | no |
| Was this game worth your time/money? | yes |
Playing the game
You are an Interpol agent on vacation when the infamous Dr. Chaos makes a jailbreak with the help of three associates. In hopes of finding the four villians quickly, Interpol will be sending you around the globe to various locations they suspect the culprits to be. It is your job to find a list of items in each location in order to apprehend the four vilians.
Use the left stick, or D pad for slow movement, to move the cursor around to point to and select the items you’re looking for in the picture. You have the ability to zoom in on a small, circled area around the cursor using the left trigger. This zoomed area can be toggled on and off and moves with the cursor. Once an item has been located with the cursor dot, pull the right trigger or push the A button to pick it.
What the game gets right
The user interface for this game is pretty slick and the art is good but was defintely designed for a larger display.
The game play seems pretty balanced making the game a real challenge, especially in the later levels when you sometimes need to forego the bonus items to find everything in time. The time limit combined with time being reduced for clicking on the wrong objects too much helps keep some small amount of tension.
What the game gets wrong
The biggest detriment to this game, and probably only real one, is the storyline. In short, the storyline does not match up with the puzzles. I can ignore some level of cliché and a simple premise to tie the puzzles together but, I’m not sure what cats, umbrellas, or multiple instances of the number 4 (among other random things in the list) have to do with locating international villans. What methods are these “analysts” using on these random objects to determine the next location of the suspects? I’d like to think their divinings make use of chicken bones and tea leaves.
I would imagine that the biggest difficulty, next to a storyline, with hidden object games is the apect ratios and resolutions of various displays and designing for as many as possible. The art for the game was really good or, at least, I would imagine that it would be if I had a much larger display with better resolution. While there is a way to resize the interface to fit your particular arrangement, the art here didn’t translate well to a standard tv (read19″ cheapo) resolution or aspect ratio. The loss of clarity and smaller picture made it frustrating at times and playing for more than an hour really put the strain on the eyes (or maybe I’m just old).
Sum it up
It took a little while to get into the game as I didn’t like it at first. Once my brain accepted what was going on I was able to enjoy myself. I’m guessing that I’m not the target audience for this game and would like to know what the younger crowd and people with better displays thought of this. Go grab the demo off of XBLA and let me know.
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