Nancy Drew #2 - Stay Tuned for Danger

Aaand we are right into one of my least liked Nancy Drew games. I have decided though to try and set out a sort of 'Pattern' when doing these though since each of these games have quite a bit in common. Basically putting everything into neat categories.. And those are...

Story - The basic plot, if good twists happen, how easy it is to work out who the villain is.

Location - About where the game is set, how easy it is to go from location to location and any movement 'Quirks' any of the games may have.

Puzzles - Easy? Hard? Irritating? Repetitive? I'll note them down here.

Mechanics - If there's any special mechanics or systems the game uses that isn't in the other games and if it helps or hurts the game overall.

Second Chance - The ways to 'Game Over' and if they are fair or not

Overall - Good/Bad? Newcomer title or one more for Veterans?

Simple! Anyway without further ado lets go into the second game, Stay Tuned For Danger.

Firstly before I began, the background art can be very nice in this game. The character modelling looks awful and amusingly so at times as you will see in the screenshots.

Plot
One of the more decent aspects of this game. Here Nancy is hired by Mattie Jensen, a famous soap actress, to try and solve various 'Accidents' on set and threats sent right to her co-star, the rather cocky Rick Arlen. As the game progresses more incidents occur along with threats an a very real bomb planted in Rick's dressing room.

That said, even with the decent plot in tow, the characters themselves can be a little one-dimensional with very little about them other than a few key things. The culprit though is bit tougher to notice until right near to the end. Though I don't know if I should be awarding points for that one given, like I said, the poor characterization.

Location
You would think having a mystery spread across a film set would be fun? Uh. No not really. Most the game is spent wandering through samey looking corridors and offices. None of the locations are all that memorable. Getting place to place though is easy enough but its still just a bit dull.

Puzzles
Another good point, the puzzles are varied through the game and most will likely have you stumped for a bit with riddles, code puzzles and bomb-defusing all taking place. There is one puzzle however that is just plain irritating and... I will talk about that in the second chance section.

Mechanics
Unlike the first game, this one uses a 'Day and Night' time mechanic to speed things along. Its very simple, works well and that's that.

Second Chance
There are several ways as usual to get yourself a game-over. Also as usual should you get a game-over you can correct your mistake easily for instance getting caught or thrown off the case. Then there comes the bomb puzzle. As good and tense as the whole sequence is, it throws a major minus point for the game as if you don't collect what you need for the puzzle before entering the room it is in, the game becomes unwinnable as 'Second-Chance' puts you right back in front of the bomb with NO way to defuse it.

Oh and then there is a 'Timed' puzzle near the end of the game which relies solely on luck. That's right. For some reason they thought a timed puzzle that randomly resets itself every time you go to it would be fun. Oh and the actual time you get to do it is minimal at best.

Overall
Overall there's all the potential here to be good but so many hiccups just spoil the game and as such I cannot really recommend it to anyone but the completionist of the series. Oh and its also unavailable to buy at the moment and unlike the first game, has no remake. *shrugs*