One thing I want to point out before I start is that this is the last game that will have the regular welcome screen when you click “new game”. Also for once we are playing a game that is based on a Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys Super Mystery #8 Mystery Train (most of the games we have played are based on either the Nancy Drew Files books or one from the main series that lasted until the early 2000s…this is from the Files era, and yet somehow the Nancy/Hardy’s mystery files books outlasted Nancy Drew Files by about a year)


Gameplay and Story: You are invited as a guest of Frank and Joe Hardy (yes they are along for the ride in this game) on this recently restored train that belonged to a miner named Jake Hurley. One day the train returned without Hurley and his engineer was found dead. We are all on an expedition to seek out Hurley’s lost mine in Copper Gorge in Colorado. Legend has it that Jake’s late wife Camille haunts the train as well. Remember you are a guest of the Hardy Boys not the dim bulb heiress of a hostess Lori Girard (having a tabloid chasing heiress here really dates the game, it came out when Paris Hilton was usually in tabloids at the drop of a hat, and boy I can’t believe the Kardashians made me miss her) you’re also joined by another “experienced” detective and former spouse of Lori’s Tino Balducci, a tv Ghost Hunter John Gray and Charleena Purcell (remember her? we spoke to her on the phone about Dirk Valentine back when we were at Shadow Ranch….don’t worry she doesn’t remember us either, which is a shame because I would have liked to have known if she started writing about Dirk and Francis or if she did visit the Rawley’s) so suddenly during a brief power outage, Lori disappears….oh don’t worry she wasn’t abducted or anything, turns out this was all a trick of her doing. We find her in the Caboose just chilling and reading one of Charleena’s books. The Good news is she rewards us with a letter that Jake meant to send to his niece Ruth (again I’m sorry that the narration didn’t go past Shadow Ranch) that leaves clues to where his mine is, well now we just have to find some items that would help find Jake’s mine and question the other people on the train (Yeah considering that we know that Lori made herself disappear they aren’t really suspects, hell the Hardy Boys are automatically ruled out and we don’t consider Fatima a suspect because we don’t meet her til we get to Copper Gorge) As is the status quo we question suspects, solve puzzles to find stuff or open passageways (here we also look for slugs and gems)

Graphics: and once again we have the same graphics for this game, there is a pretty cutscene that is unexplainable but it’s not Camille’s ghost. Oh and they changed the look of the cursor like we still have the red magnifying glass but the arrows have changed their look

Soundtrack: There is one that really stood out to me that was done on guitar (I checked it’s called “Explore”, there isn’t really anything bouncy like in the last game. There is a track called “Society” that would fit into a relaxing compilation. It's that pretty. They actually use a full Orchestra for when you finally get all the pieces put together for when you finally get Hurley’s projector working (though it’s just an Orchestrated version of the track called Melody) though somehow a part of me thinks this game exists because they probably had an unused track or two meant for Shadow Ranch and wanted to make good use for them

Addictive: hoo boy was I eager to find some time to play this game, especially between work and shopping, other online stuff and having a backlog of movies to watch (the latter of which I am still dealing with)

Depth: This took me a few tries to finish. I eventually did a one sitting playing of this during Victoria Day Weekend. We spend the first third of the game on a moving train, the second 3rd in Copper Gorge (when we do arrive Nancy visits this general store run by the proprietor that dressed like a prospector, that would be Fatima, who also happens to be a descendant of this Buell guy that Hurley left his stuff with, oh that reminds me this game introduces a new feature that we see come and go in the next several games, we cook for people (though we only do this activity once, and as Frank) and this also starts a feature known as switching characters but this does it automatically unlike in future games where all it takes is a phone call

Difficulty: of course as usual we have Junior and Senior detective difficulty levels, there some things we had to go back and do but I found myself once again taking notes for this game, or for me printing off certain things because when you do the dance activity it starts over if you look at the paper with the dance steps. Also this is one of those rare games where no phone numbers are added(second one in a row), you have Bess and George as a phone-a-friend to call for help (this time they’re painting Bess’s room, it’s like they’re always doing something to keep their mind off of Nancy being away)

Post Review Follow Up: Well now I live in morbid fear of playing Danger By Design however as of the typing of this review I have not obtained a copy of it. Having the Hardy boys here was a nice touch, we don’t see them again until Kapu Cave ... and then they go back to being a phone-a-friend for a good chunk of the series…I’ll gripe about it if I ever get around to getting a copy of the game. The game had an interesting story however I haven’t read the book version.