Mystery Case Files: MillionHeir (Nintendo DS) Review

The formula throughout the six existing games has been ported over in its entirety - you're given a painted picture with a whole bunch of objects dotted about throughout the scene and you're given a number of items to point out to progress through the main story. Think "Where's Wally" (Waldo), but instead of finding the cheerful lad and his friends you'll be looking for essential, and sometimes totally random, objects - from a lizard to a slice of celery, glasses to a set of dentures.

It isn't quite as simple as it sounds as the later objects are carefully hidden, camouflaged and even subtly outlined in other bits and pieces. Initially it'd be looking for a ball, a toy, something along those lines and it'd just be there - pretty obvious - but in the later levels you'd have some ridiculously difficult tasks like finding a train. An hour later and voila, it's taken the shape of a cloud, or a crack in a wooden plane. Often looking for a "car" or something that'd you'd naturally expect to be huge and clear will be shrunk as tiny as possible and hidden away in the least likely place. It can be that tough. Simply tap on an item and it's stripped off an on-screen list of 7 or 8 things to hunt out. Find the minimum amount and you'll progress to a tougher stage and continue through the loosely woven-together plot.

Much like the more recent MCF titles there's a loose story to follow, this time helping find a nutty millionaire who goes by the name Phil T. Rich, and as you wander around his estate there'll be various suspects to unravel and each in turn open up new scenes to investigate. Every area contains around about 30 items or so to tap out, and a minimum amount to find to proceed to the next suspect. Scroll about using the d-pad or the stylus, the top screen will contain your inventory and you're running through the list to find as many as possible. Fortunately for those excruciatingly tricky ones the included hint system can help you unravel 4 or 5 items that are near impossible to find.

With the DS version Big Fish Games have explored a few new innovations related to specific items you'll pick up - a flash light and X-ray for example - open up new mechanics for later areas, such as searching in the dark with your stylus. Some environmental puzzles offer some variation, for example using a straw to blow out a fireplace, or goggles to hunt for items in a tank of water. In some you'll need to poke and prod a little more to find what you're looking for, and although it's not groundbreaking in design it's a more inventive approach to randomly eating away the DS touch screen with a stylus. Between the story mode levels are some very basic, but different, touch games to complete - such as solving a jigsaw puzzle, spot the difference and a series of neat drawing-based problem solving exercises. Although these make a neat distraction between the puzzle levels, they're not particularly interesting for the most part, feeling more like touch-screen experiments and "plot devices" than significant mini-games.

To compliment the single player story there are also randomly-generated quick puzzles to generate and play through on the bog, or on a trip - a useful addition for the game's portable nature. Up to four players can also go at it wirelessly - and this is one of those times where human competition is by far more exciting, and challenging.