Dark Tales: Edgar Allan Poe`s Murders in the Rue Morgue Collector`s Edition

Dark Tales: Edgar Allan Poe Murders in the Rue Morgue by ERS G-Studio is another hidden object adventure based on Edgar Allan Poe’s illustrious short story. You play as an acute detective Dupin, solving a dreadful murder in 19th century Paris.

In fact this very game is a mixture of adventure and hidden object genre where you are to explore scenes, pick up a lot of items or zoom in on part of a room to find a list of hidden objects, among which is always hidden one or two important items. Dark Tales: Edgar Allan Poe Murders in the Rue Morgue provides a regular mode to play, which has short recharge time of the hints, and points out active zones with sparkles. And vice versa expert mode offers longer recharge times and doesn’t indicate where the active zones are. Honestly, without helpful sparkles, you might hardly find one or another puzzle. 

Despite the striking title, the game makes a feeble contribution to the hidden object market. The developers go after predictable way offering players countless mystery items to find, wandering from location to location and interrogating people that are connected with the accident in some way. The artwork is lovely, but most of places are typical for such games and hardly notable. Moreover, the game lacks in a logical structure at times as well. No wonder, you will find yourself collecting objects with no idea of their importance, except you know that you need them because they are highlighting. All parts of the scenery that can be zoomed in on for hidden object searches are also marked, and you will sometimes have to investigate the same scene more than once. This feature cannot but bewilder the players, since nobody likes repetitions.

In addition to the plain graphics, one can be disappointed by the lack of voice-acting or any expressive animation that might bring this title up to standard. Of course, there are much more polished games with real twists. Anyway Dark Tales: Edgar Allan Poe Murders in the Rue Morgue has a playable value owing to its plausible storyline and may entertain you on this long Christmas holiday.

21, December 2009