Real Crimes: Jack The Ripper (Nintendo DS) Review

Rather than crafting some fanciful tale of mystery and intrigue, Real Crimes: Jack the Ripper takes the darker tone of real life, with the focus being on the infamous Jack the Ripper, one of the most notorious murderers of all time. The scene is set in London, 1889, with players helping Scotland Yard’s detectives as they attempt to crack the misdemeanour. This leads to thirty-three locations being scrutinised across popular landmarks such as Piccadilly Circus, Whitechapel Lane and even Buckingham Palace.

Unfortunately, Real Crimes: Jack the Ripper is not exactly a wonderful example of how to do a Hidden Object game. Whilst City Interactive has already brought out the fantastic Vampire Moon: Mystery of the Hidden Sun and the even better Murder in Venice, Real Crimes falls down in some fundamental areas. First of all, the actual item placement is extremely unusual. Okay, the idea is to hide objects around whatever stage is currently being visited, yet when absolutely crazy things like horse heads in the sky start appearing, it makes you wonder what is going on.

With plenty of odd appearances around levels matters become more confusing than anything, meaning that trying to search for whatever is on the list is more annoying than entertaining. Then there is the list of objects as well, with its lack of variety, and the fact that some features are extremely faint in the background so that in certain light they cannot be seen at all. Either that or there will be an objective such as finding five bottles where there are clearly eight or so in the stage, but the game wants only specific ones chosen, with a time penalty incurred for any wrong tap.

Thankfully Real Crimes: Jack the Ripper is not all about the seeking and finding element, with some moments of pause to give players a break. The thirteen extra mini-games included, though, are not particularly taxing on the brain, with simple ‘Spot the Difference’ images and tile sliding puzzles being the general order of the day, and even the unusual occurrence of a puzzle with no clues as to its solution, leaving it down to sheer trial and error. They are certainly a welcomed break from what becomes a highly frustrating and monotonous hidden object experience, but really do not add that much value on the whole. It is the five murder cases, which are the central core of the storyline, that will keep certain players chugging along until the end, but with only five investigations in total, the end arrives sooner than expected.