How I Underestimated Nancy Drew
A couple of weeks ago, while perusing the oh so dangerous to my wallet Steam sales, I discovered the Nancy Drew adventure games on sale for a measly $2. Without hesitation, I bought one for my friend/landlord and his daughters, who not only love Nancy Drew games but have suddenly taken an interest in gaming with their father instead of bickering or making youtube videos or whatever it is kids do these days. And because I live in close proximity, I got to sit down and play it with them. Because there is no adventure game I can turn down apparently.
This was the first one we played!
I had heard of the Nancy Drew games before of course. It’s hard not to what with there being almost 30 of them now. And to be honest, I wasn’t really expecting all that much from them. I don’t know, something about hearing the words “designed for girls” just gave me images of pink horrific nightmares where female characters cared more about what clothes to shop for than what mystery to solve.
I am looking at YOU, Barbie!
But it was still an adventure game, and heck, I read Nancy Drew as a kid too so I owed it to my inner child to at least give it a shot. We booted up the game where the extremely enthusiastic Nancy introduced us to her office and asked whether we wanted to try the game on junior or senior detective. Naturally we chose senior detective. After all, the game was designed for children. We, as seasoned gamers, needed at least a little bit of challenge. How difficult could it be?
….I clearly underestimated Ms. Drew.
Nancy Drew…is a difficult series of games. Like…like “smack your head into a wall to try to numb the pain” difficult. There are puzzles in these games that would stump even the most seasoned of adventure gamers out there. In fact, after about ten minutes of playing that first game we finally admitted that we might have to demote ourselves to Junior Detective. Mind you, that was more because the puzzles were more tedious rather than difficult on senior setting, but later games would improve on this (we would play on senior detective for future installments).
This…this one was madness
That was my first shock. The second…was that the Nancy Drew series was actually quite enjoyable. The mysteries are intriguing and well thought out, the characters are interesting and well defined, the graphics are pretty decent given their budget, the voice acting extremely strong and the puzzles quite satisfying, the women all had decently proportioned chests.
See how she’s not falling over? That’s how most women operate
They are also just outright spooky. There is more than one title in the series that involves some ghost haunting some spooky manor or hotel or whatever, and naturally being for kids I would expect it at most to have the occasional “wooooo” sound effect but otherwise go easy on the psyche of the kids playing the game. Good gravy, is that ever not the case. More than once I found myself clawing onto a small child for comfort as we encountered “vengeful spirits” through the games. The worst of these would have to be a tie between a southern debutante with a tendency to sing off key lullabies and follow you silently down hallways and a classic Japanese yurei who clearly watched the Ring before beginning her career as a ghost.
LOOK AT THE CREEPY!…I swear it was creepy!…you had to be there
But the biggest shock of all was that Nancy herself is an honest to goodness positive role model for girls. Maybe I was expecting something a bit more dated having read the books but I was seriously surprised with how good a job Her Interactive did with the character of Nancy Drew. She’s enthusiastic and perky, yes, but she’s also witty and relies on her intelligence rather than her boobs to get her out of bad situations.
Unlike some female protagonists I know…
She’s not obsessed with clothes although there are games in the series in which you can design and dress up phone avatars. Even then, it’s more tacked on and not the focus of the game. She does have girly friends, namely Bess who makes an appearance via phone conversations almost every game. Sure, she’s portrayed as a bit ditzier and boy obsessed, but she still manages to be a well defined and extremely entertaining character. Seriously, Bess somehow became my favourite parts of the games.
A ditzy blond who ISN’T annoying! It IS possible!
Because Nancy has a steady boyfriend, there’s no need to give her a romance nor do the developers succumb to the temptation to give her a Twilight-esque love triangle. She is happy with (the admittedly somewhat dull) Ned and clearly has no patience for any sort of romantic drama. There are mysteries to be solved! And really, that’s how it should be.
This is about as crazy as the eye candy gets actually
Are they perfect games? No. There are some tedious sequences and aggravating puzzles that will make you want to throw your mouse into the wall. But they are surprisingly decent.
We’ve plowed through around five of them now and the girls are still hankering for more. There’s no argument from my friend or I as well…we are hankering for them too. It makes me wonder if these games were more designed to be played with family given the challenge level of some of them. It also makes me sorry for boys who are clearly not considered the target audience for these types of games. They are missing out on some great puzzles.
Look! Egyptian tooooomb!
Still, it’s refreshing to see a female protagonist and game that actually respects its audience rather than pander to a decades old sterotype. And besides which, I know of at least two girls who are absolutely adoring the heck out of these games. So…yeah, kudos to Her Interactive. If you enjoy adventure games and haven’t tried the series out, I would highly recommend it. Even better, if you’re looking for a game to play with your kids, Nancy Drew is a good start. I know I certainly won’t underestimate her again.
