Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I don't know about you, but I play casual games as an escape, to go someplace where there are no utility bills to pay or meals to cook. Somewhere new and exciting. "Dire Grove" is the perfect escape, so immersive you'll shiver in your computer chair, as it never stops snowing in the strange, isolated little English town where you're marooned behind an abandoned car, its lights on, its doors open, a cryptic note on the front seat.
The graphics are gorgeous and "Dire Grove" is a worthy successor to "Return to Ravenhearst" both as an art production and a drama. Most of the action takes place before you arrive on the scene but near the abandoned car you find the first of 20 videotapes scattered around the area which document the adventures of four graduate students who seek to find the truth behind a Celtic legend and quickly get into deep, deep trouble. The tapes are very well done and as you pick them up and listen to each one you'll detect the palpable rising distress of the students as they get sucked into a strange world from which they cannot escape.
Of course, you've got to find the twenty-somethings! You've got to rescue them! With the snow crunching under your boots and the wild wind whistling in your ear, you'll explore the lonely, bleak cold area, including a creepy old bed and breakfast inn, a cemetery guarded by a hungry wolf, a sabotaged historical museum, an old mill, an abandoned barn, a boat shack and much more.
Sparkles will let you know there's a hidden object cache for you to explore and you save one tool from each hidden object location to use somewhere, somehow- a saw, a plank, a hammer, nails, a fire extinguisher. All of the tools are utilitarian and perform a sensible function. There's no combining of odd or inappropriate objects, but you will have to use your ingenuity to put the tools in the proper place such as powering up a generator to provide lights for the inn.
There are many stand-alone puzzles for you to solve as you trudge along in the snow. They are hard enough to be interesting but not so difficult that you become a basket case of frustration. From tile rotation to code deciphering, sliders, pattern connections and at the end a nifty riddle and alphabet sequencing puzzle, your brain will get a good workout. However, you can by-pass the puzzles if you wish.
"Dire Grove" pulls you into an atmosphere of dread: gloomy orchestral music is interrupted by eerie ambient sounds, crunches, squeaks, groans. You'll get so immersed you'll forget where you are! All in all, Grove is a cut above the rest. Perhaps you can call it class, but whatever you call it, don't miss this one!
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Mystery Case Files: Dire Grove
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