Mortimer Beckett and the Secrets of Spooky Manor - Wii (Quick Review)
Due to it's difference from the other consoles in it's generation with the motion controls, the Wii sees a lot of genre-exclusivity in it's games. One of these genres ends up being games of the hidden objects variety. These are the games where you're given a picture with a mess of items all over the place, and you have a checklist of things you need to find in the mess. Secrets of Spooky Manor is a member of the genre that promises a twist on the style of gameplay.
You play as Mortimer who is summoned to his uncle's mansion in hopes of eliminating ghosts from the premises with the use of a Ghost Machine. You must find your way through the entire house, locating not only the pieces of the Ghost Machine, but your uncle himself. Items have been scattered throughout every room which need to be returned to their rightful place, pieces of the machine are all over, and entryways to further levels of the mansion need to be discovered.
Let's find out if the twist that Secrets of Spooky Manor promises is worth it, or if this game should just stay hidden.
The Good
- Further Gameplay. The majority of hidden object games give you a timer, a shopping list of items, and that's it. Spooky Manor drops the time limit completely, and breaks the items up into pieces which you must find and put back together. It's essentially the same exact concept with a bit of a tweak, but dropping the time limit in this type of game makes it more relaxed and not as pressured, while the broken items keep the difficulty level somewhat up their for you. Instead of looking for a big fluffy ball of purple fabric, you're instead trying to find four or five pieces of it throughout the room you're in.
- Float Around. This ends up being the other element of the "twist on gameplay". Once you locate the pieces for the items, you're not done there. Each completed item has a specific place it needs to return to. Each floor of the mansion is a full "level" of the game with multiple rooms, and the items that you find in one room usually have a place in another room. This sort of adds on to my above point of furthering the gameplay because it's not just about finding the pieces for the items, that only ends up being half the puzzle.
- Ghost Defense. Your main "enemy" in this game are ghostly apparitions that will pop up and either float about randomly on the screen, or you'll have to shake the WiiMote to get them off. What triggers them is if you click too many times on areas where there's no hidden objects (it's basically a spam click deterrent). While they're floating around, if you try to click through them, you won't be able to, so you either have to wait til they move out of the way, or just wait til they fade back into the ether.
The Bad
- Save System. Or more honestly a lack of notifying you that YOU are the save system. We live in the era of the life saving auto-save. So it's shocking when such a simple game as this has no sort of auto-save whatsoever, and it doesn't even make it easy for you to find out how to save it. The option for saving your game doesn't present itself unless you try and quit back to the main menu, THEN it gives you the option to exit, or save and exit.
- Super Precision. By far the single most annoying feature of this game. When you go to click on one of the item pieces, you need to actually click ON it, not just sort of close to it. It makes sense, it's a deterrent from the people who want to just whip the cursor around the room mashing A to find everything they need (it'll just trigger the ghosts anyways), but as small as some of these items are, it's crazy how precise you have to be. There were actually a few times that I found an item, tried clicking on it just to not have it work, got frustrated and eventually used a hint, only to have the item be exactly where I knew it was. Again, it makes sense, but when you're trying to find pieces of a dart and one of them is literally just the tip (zing) it's a little ridiculous.
Is it Worth it?
Well right off the bat...it's a hidden objects game, so it's obviously not going to win any GOTY awards. It's a cheap throwaway title for the Wii, and you'll be able to find it for no more than $5. The story isn't very long, you can easily beat this game in a single seating if you're determined enough to do so. Spooky Manor is pretty enjoyable though, I personally liked the spin of finding the objects and then finding where they belonged. This game promised a twist on the genre, and while it wasn't earth-shattering, it did deliver on it's promise. It's short, it's a bit challenging, and while it won't make you want to replay it over and over again it is fun enough to play through it. Your reward for beating this game is getting a new layout for the rooms so it sort of ups the challenge for a replay since it becomes finding everything again instead of remembering where stuff was. Just don't forget to save.
I did finish the story of this game. Technically I probably beat this game twice in the course of a couple days thanks to the lack of auto-saves. I had no idea it didn't save, so once I got over halfway through the mansion I turned it off for the night, only to fire it back up in the morning and see "New Game" as the only option. I think I would've been less annoyed by this one if it weren't for this missing feature, but I'm a huge fan of puzzles so I enjoyed it for the little bit of time I spent in it.
You play as Mortimer who is summoned to his uncle's mansion in hopes of eliminating ghosts from the premises with the use of a Ghost Machine. You must find your way through the entire house, locating not only the pieces of the Ghost Machine, but your uncle himself. Items have been scattered throughout every room which need to be returned to their rightful place, pieces of the machine are all over, and entryways to further levels of the mansion need to be discovered.
Let's find out if the twist that Secrets of Spooky Manor promises is worth it, or if this game should just stay hidden.
The Good
- Further Gameplay. The majority of hidden object games give you a timer, a shopping list of items, and that's it. Spooky Manor drops the time limit completely, and breaks the items up into pieces which you must find and put back together. It's essentially the same exact concept with a bit of a tweak, but dropping the time limit in this type of game makes it more relaxed and not as pressured, while the broken items keep the difficulty level somewhat up their for you. Instead of looking for a big fluffy ball of purple fabric, you're instead trying to find four or five pieces of it throughout the room you're in.
- Float Around. This ends up being the other element of the "twist on gameplay". Once you locate the pieces for the items, you're not done there. Each completed item has a specific place it needs to return to. Each floor of the mansion is a full "level" of the game with multiple rooms, and the items that you find in one room usually have a place in another room. This sort of adds on to my above point of furthering the gameplay because it's not just about finding the pieces for the items, that only ends up being half the puzzle.
- Ghost Defense. Your main "enemy" in this game are ghostly apparitions that will pop up and either float about randomly on the screen, or you'll have to shake the WiiMote to get them off. What triggers them is if you click too many times on areas where there's no hidden objects (it's basically a spam click deterrent). While they're floating around, if you try to click through them, you won't be able to, so you either have to wait til they move out of the way, or just wait til they fade back into the ether.
The Bad
- Save System. Or more honestly a lack of notifying you that YOU are the save system. We live in the era of the life saving auto-save. So it's shocking when such a simple game as this has no sort of auto-save whatsoever, and it doesn't even make it easy for you to find out how to save it. The option for saving your game doesn't present itself unless you try and quit back to the main menu, THEN it gives you the option to exit, or save and exit.
- Super Precision. By far the single most annoying feature of this game. When you go to click on one of the item pieces, you need to actually click ON it, not just sort of close to it. It makes sense, it's a deterrent from the people who want to just whip the cursor around the room mashing A to find everything they need (it'll just trigger the ghosts anyways), but as small as some of these items are, it's crazy how precise you have to be. There were actually a few times that I found an item, tried clicking on it just to not have it work, got frustrated and eventually used a hint, only to have the item be exactly where I knew it was. Again, it makes sense, but when you're trying to find pieces of a dart and one of them is literally just the tip (zing) it's a little ridiculous.
Is it Worth it?
Well right off the bat...it's a hidden objects game, so it's obviously not going to win any GOTY awards. It's a cheap throwaway title for the Wii, and you'll be able to find it for no more than $5. The story isn't very long, you can easily beat this game in a single seating if you're determined enough to do so. Spooky Manor is pretty enjoyable though, I personally liked the spin of finding the objects and then finding where they belonged. This game promised a twist on the genre, and while it wasn't earth-shattering, it did deliver on it's promise. It's short, it's a bit challenging, and while it won't make you want to replay it over and over again it is fun enough to play through it. Your reward for beating this game is getting a new layout for the rooms so it sort of ups the challenge for a replay since it becomes finding everything again instead of remembering where stuff was. Just don't forget to save.
I did finish the story of this game. Technically I probably beat this game twice in the course of a couple days thanks to the lack of auto-saves. I had no idea it didn't save, so once I got over halfway through the mansion I turned it off for the night, only to fire it back up in the morning and see "New Game" as the only option. I think I would've been less annoyed by this one if it weren't for this missing feature, but I'm a huge fan of puzzles so I enjoyed it for the little bit of time I spent in it.
