Play it in view of the first in the series however this is not the blueprint for other Nancy Drew games.
Graphics: 5
Sounds: 8 (decent voice acting / beautiful musical scores)
Value: 5 (at least it's $20)
Tilt: 5 (with the additional changes I still felt a little disappointed)
Actual score: 5.3
Nancy Drew has been with us for 80 years now. Appearing in novels and movies it was in 1998 that developers Her Interactive took Nancy into the computer gaming world. Their first game titled 'Secrets Can Kill' had reasonable success. Then in 2010 Her Interactive along with Nancy's 80th birthday remastered this game with updated graphics, new challenges, no disc swapping (as the original had two discs) and a new ending so consequently enough the game was titled 'Secrets Can Kill Remastered'.
Took place in sunny Florida, Nancy's Aunt Eloise contacted Nancy to investigate a murder that took place in Paseo del Mar High School. Upon arrival Nancy should contact an undercover detective Beech to receive further instructions of this murder. A simple plot nevertheless!
Upon booting the game, the first thing you'll notice is a new feature called 'Nancy Drew Central'. Here provides you all your links of previously installed Nancy Drew games and additional support like help, hints and tips and so forth. I thought this is quite a nifty feature as the entire Nancy Drew experience is just a click away. So to launch your game simply click on the 'book' called Secrets Can Kill Remastered and you'll be on your way.
The next thing you'll see is Nancy's desk; or as she calls it the 'centre of operations'. This is a tutorial of sorts so if you are new to all of this it's advisable to run through the bits and pieces as you'll get the understanding of how things work. All of this is viewed in first person view so it's like viewing through the eyes of Nancy herself.
So once into the game is entirely viewed of a first-person style point-and-click adventure game. Similar in the vein of the old Myst series where this time your cursor is in the shape of Nancy's famous magnify glass. The magnify glass will glow if she's hovering above an interactive object that requires a simple left click to make things happen. Also you have your inventory for usable items and a new feature Nancy's mobile phone. This is very cool as not only it can make calls you can take pictures (for which is extremely handy – trust me on this). And if you really need to you can change the mobile's looks etc.
Throughout the game there are only four suspects so one comes to expect it's not going to be a long game. Yet being a remastered version it has an additional being called Detective Breech for which makes it five. But all is not lost as this version has achievements like collect all the hidden coins, visit every room etc. It's quite a nice touch to those who wants to get that perfect score. Sadly though, the game is dominated by word puzzles (e.g. mirrored, scrambled etc) that don't really serve any real purpose as the very few required puzzles are enough to crack the case.
Also the game has two modes of difficulty being junior and senior detective. The main difference between the two are the puzzles are harder to solve (yet unfortunately there's not much puzzles to begin with) and the checklist available (only in the junior level). I originally started out in the junior level only to see how this checklist works and it's quite good to those who would like to keep the momentum going. Otherwise the senior detective will require a pen and paper to record all your findings (unless you have some sort of photographic memory).
There are some noticeable graphical enhancements yet the main attraction is all the 'talkable' characters are now in 3D (as opposed to the original having 2D cartoon-like characters). Yet this is the general direction since 'Stay Tuned for Danger' – Nancy Drew's second game. The sounds though are exactly the same as the original except for the musical scores as there are more tunes to hear. And like the first one you can play the entire set via the in-game jukebox however this time you need a coin to operate it.
Overall the remake is not quite bad at all. Considering the first game (and the only game) that uses 2D cartoon-like characters it was a good idea to clean this up. In addition to the extra talkable character Detective Breech, achievements added and of course the different ending anyone who'd played the original one should give this one a go. Yet for newcomers might think the lesser of it as its remarkably short with minimal actual puzzles. Play it in view of the first in the series however this is not the blueprint for other Nancy Drew games.