A short but pleasureable romp through France in the shoes of the best girl detective in the world.

Ah, Nancy Drew. I have fond memories of reading her books (and the Hardy Boys, and the crossover books) way back in elementary school. Imagine my pleasure when I discovered the Nancy Drew videogame series, currently 14 strong, with more adventures on the way. The graphic adventure genre is long past its glory days, but Her Interactive seems to have found the secret to tapping into that elusive female gamer market. I took Nancy’s latest adventure for a spin to search for that answer for myself.


I wasn’t expecting anything mind-shattering in terms of story; this is Nancy Drew, after all. She’s been hired to go to Paris and discover the reason behind fashion designer Mimette’s recent odd behaviour. This involves working undercover as an assistant at the design studio, and traipsing all over Paris running errands and chasing down leads. The story starts off promisingly enough, but the focus soon shifts onto a tenuously linked subplot.



It felt as though the writers decided early on that they didn’t care for the story, cooked up a larger secondary mystery, and never bothered to rewrite it all into something more cohesive. Several story threads are left loose at the end, while others are wrapped up “deus ex machine”-style, making it feel rushed and rather unsatisfying. Thankfully the subplot is quite engaging and well resolved. I don’t want to give anything away, so I’ll give you a clue; it felt at times like playing through a Dan Brown novel.