And I thought the Wally books challenged me!

Mystery Case Files: Millionheir is the perfect example of an underrated genre. It requires no real skill to play and simply hinges on your powers of observation. To a gamer like myself, this could have been a challenge, but I guarantee you’ll be poking around, desperately seeking clues before you can say ‘Sherlock Holmes’.

Mystery Case Files: Millionheir sees you in the shoes of an unnamed detective, meeting with the millionaire, Phil T. Rich, before he disappears. Phil T. Rich, from the start seems to be a man without a care in the world and, for the most part always smiling. Once kidnapped you are charged with finding him … hopefully alive.

Not even a forensics kit will help you here!

It’s the way you go about finding him which some may find odd. Let’s just say, CSI this ain’t. Instead, you must comb through scenes that contain so many random objects and clutter that even the famous CSI team would look doubtful. But that’s exactly where the fun of Mystery Case Files: Millionheir lies; in the apparent randomness of the items you are searching for and the fiendish way in which they’re hidden. You’ll love the feeling of complete euphoria you get when you suddenly spot that damn horseshoe perfectly concealed on the lamp. And the puzzles only get harder as you progress through the game. But fret not; there is an abundance of items to help you in your quest to find Phil T Rich. Help also comes in the form of items such as a torch and an X-ray torch. A nice touch to the torch is that it will run out of power and you will need to return to previous ‘crime scenes’ to find a new battery.

As a back up in case you do get completely stumped, you will be given hints to use throughout the game. I will point out though that as the game progresses you will be given more hints but whilst these do not reset when you enter a new scene, they do reset when you start investigating a new character. You will therefore need to use your hints wisely.

Mystery Case Files has no animations to speak of as everything is displayed on a static screen. To be honest, this is a pretty linear game in terms of game play as all you do is go through the scenes to find the items to enable the story to unfold. Having said that, Mystery Case Files: Millionheir is still great fun and well worth an investigation.

What’s more, there are lots of extra challenges and interactive elements thrown in to help keep the game fresh, such as jigsaws, matching up pairs (such as a chicken and an egg) and good old fashioned slide puzzles where you rearrange the tiles to create a scene.

The screen set up for Mystery Case Files on the Nintendo DS is smooth and easy to use. The top screen shows a zoomed out version of the scene, along with a list of the objects you need to find. The bottom screen shows a close up of the scene in which you can scroll around in order to find the objects.

Silence is bliss?

One of the only gripes is that the music can get annoying after 10 or 15 minutes so I found myself either playing in silence or turning on my I pod. There’s no speech; all the information you’re given is text based, so you can happily search the scene whilst listening to whatever it is you listen to. Personally I found the Final Fantasy Soundtrack helped my concentration.

Mystery Case Files: Millionheir is a one of a kind on the Nintendo DS. It doesn’t feature half baked controls or push the DS to its limit in any way; it doesn’t feature any FMV sequences or associate itself to a movie. It’s just simple and fun; the kind of seek-and-solve game that will make a long journey go very quickly indeed and therefore an essential addition to any collection.

GAME's Verdict

• It's just so much fun.
• Plenty of replay value with quick play.
• Interesting puzzles to keep you thinking.

• Animated cutscenes would have been a nice touch.
• Ingame voices to accompany the text.
• Not knowing if or when the next Mystery Case Files game will be released on the DS.

Review by: Tom "Elementary"Daly
Version Tested: Nintendo DS
Review Published: 13.02.09