Cameron Files: Secrets At Loch Ness

Rating:
Summary: Just My Speed
Review: On a whim I bought Secrets at Loch Ness and now that I've played it, I want more! Though a little confusing at times, for a simple gamer like me, the game was perfect. I only wish it would have been longer.

Rating:
Summary: NOT BAD AT ALL
Review: REally good game for the most part - the graphics weren't quite up to par I thought but not too bad. The movement can be a bit stilted but easy to get through. Good puzzles and story line. Not bad at all.

Rating:
Summary: Annoying in some spots
Review: The rooms inside the Manor house were spectacular, but limited in what you could do or where you could go. This got annoying after awhile, the snoop inside me wanted to go into that locked room! The notebook was nicely done, and the notes helped me past a few lost and clueless moments. Warning: you CAN die in this game! It's a good game for those who like puzzles, but are scared off by the monster puzzles in Myst and Riven. The detective is a Sam Spade clone, so he's not for the little ones.

Rating:
Summary: Annoying in some spots
Review: The rooms inside the Manor house were spectacular, but limited in what you could do or where you could go. This got annoying after awhile, the snoop inside me wanted to go into that locked room! The notebook was nicely done, and the notes helped me past a few lost and clueless moments. Warning: you CAN die in this game! It's a good game for those who like puzzles, but are scared off by the monster puzzles in Myst and Riven. The detective is a Sam Spade clone, so he's not for the little ones.

Rating:
Summary: Lots of Good, Clean Fun!!!
Review: This was a game for all ages. It was funny and smartly put together!! A little humor in a game goes a long way!! The graphics were great and the puzzles we fairly easy to solve although watch out for the lake:-)

Rating:
Summary: 12 yr old gamer
Review: _The Cameron Files: Secrets of Loch Ness_ is a pretty good game and a prety standard one for Dreamcatcher -- first person adventure interspersed with third person cut scenes. The premise is that you are a Chicago investigator of Scottish descent who has been called to Scotland by a friend of your father's to investigate mysterious happenings at his ancestral manor. When you get there, you discover that the person who hired you has disappeared. Now you have to find out what's happened to him and why.

The scenic graphics are very good and immensely detailed. In fact, I would almost say they are too detailed. If you are the kind of gamer who is frustrated by seeing a great number of objects that you can't examine or a lot of doors that you can't go through, you will be irritated by this game. Most of the set pieces are just that: little things that make the scenery interesting that you can do absolutely nothing with. There are books you can't read, cabinets you can't open or even come close to. I thought there were lots of opportunities for giving more information about your situation that were totally passed up. At first this was annoying, but I quickly learned to ignore anything that didn't leap out at me.

Game play was initially slow and navigation a bit confusing and difficult to get used to. A lot of this was due to the over abundance of detail. There were lots of times I wanted to go someplace or look at something that just wasn't accessible. In particular, the castle layout was hard to learn. And once you had learned it it became clear that there were quite a number of places that were just irrelevant. This became a burden in the later portions of the game when you had to go back and forth through great empty stretches of castle to reach the rooms where something was happening. A quicker way to navigate the castle, such as a castle map or diagram, would have been helpful.

_Loch Ness_ is an exceedingly linear game. Everything has to happen in a specific order. You are barred from exploring certain rooms and areas until you've completed the necessary prior actionsand you often are barred from leaving a place until you've solved all the puzzles there. While this does keep you from a lot of backtracking and prevents you from running around looking for inventory items that you either don't need yet or are right under your nose, it cuts down on the need for real thought. In a way, this game plays itself. This sensation is enhanced by the main character's notebook and by the comments he is given to making throughout the game, both of which practically tell you where to go and what to do next. I would advise experienced gamers to ignore the notebook completely. There's no way of turning off the comments, however.

As you may have guessed from the previous, _Loch Ness_ is extremely easy. Puzzles are generally inventory-based, with some timed arcade-type activities. The one or two mechanical puzzles virtually solved themselves.

The sound and music are pretty good; the voice acting is average. There were some places where the dialog was hard to understand. I was surprised that there was no option for subtitles, which would have been helpful. In fact, I was surprised that _Loch Ness_ didn't offer some of the standard sound and video options, such as an ability to adjust the levels of music and background sounds. There was a real "bare bones" quality to a lot of the game in this respect as you were stuck with whatever settings the programmers came up with. As most games these days offer personalised settings, I wondered why this one didn't.

Aside from the linearity of the game, my major complaint was that _Loch Ness_ didn't seem as fully developed as it could have been. You were only given the bare bones of a story that could have been much more interesting. The NPC's were virtually unneccesary as none of them added anything, really. One in particular appeared from nowhere and had no discernable relationship to anything else. Fleshing out the story instead of relying on numerous cliche's could have helped a great deal and made the game last longer. Even after a slow start, I finished _Loch Ness_ in slightly over ten hours.

Still, I enjoyed _Loch Ness_. I would recommend it for a beginner, or for a more experienced gamer looking to fill in the gaps while waiting for more complex games.

Rating:
Summary: Short and Easy, but Fairly Enjoyable
Review: _The Cameron Files: Secrets of Loch Ness_ is a pretty good game and a prety standard one for Dreamcatcher -- first person adventure interspersed with third person cut scenes. The premise is that you are a Chicago investigator of Scottish descent who has been called to Scotland by a friend of your father's to investigate mysterious happenings at his ancestral manor. When you get there, you discover that the person who hired you has disappeared. Now you have to find out what's happened to him and why.

The scenic graphics are very good and immensely detailed. In fact, I would almost say they are too detailed. If you are the kind of gamer who is frustrated by seeing a great number of objects that you can't examine or a lot of doors that you can't go through, you will be irritated by this game. Most of the set pieces are just that: little things that make the scenery interesting that you can do absolutely nothing with. There are books you can't read, cabinets you can't open or even come close to. I thought there were lots of opportunities for giving more information about your situation that were totally passed up. At first this was annoying, but I quickly learned to ignore anything that didn't leap out at me.

Game play was initially slow and navigation a bit confusing and difficult to get used to. A lot of this was due to the over abundance of detail. There were lots of times I wanted to go someplace or look at something that just wasn't accessible. In particular, the castle layout was hard to learn. And once you had learned it it became clear that there were quite a number of places that were just irrelevant. This became a burden in the later portions of the game when you had to go back and forth through great empty stretches of castle to reach the rooms where something was happening. A quicker way to navigate the castle, such as a castle map or diagram, would have been helpful.

_Loch Ness_ is an exceedingly linear game. Everything has to happen in a specific order. You are barred from exploring certain rooms and areas until you've completed the necessary prior actionsand you often are barred from leaving a place until you've solved all the puzzles there. While this does keep you from a lot of backtracking and prevents you from running around looking for inventory items that you either don't need yet or are right under your nose, it cuts down on the need for real thought. In a way, this game plays itself. This sensation is enhanced by the main character's notebook and by the comments he is given to making throughout the game, both of which practically tell you where to go and what to do next. I would advise experienced gamers to ignore the notebook completely. There's no way of turning off the comments, however.

As you may have guessed from the previous, _Loch Ness_ is extremely easy. Puzzles are generally inventory-based, with some timed arcade-type activities. The one or two mechanical puzzles virtually solved themselves.

The sound and music are pretty good; the voice acting is average. There were some places where the dialog was hard to understand. I was surprised that there was no option for subtitles, which would have been helpful. In fact, I was surprised that _Loch Ness_ didn't offer some of the standard sound and video options, such as an ability to adjust the levels of music and background sounds. There was a real "bare bones" quality to a lot of the game in this respect as you were stuck with whatever settings the programmers came up with. As most games these days offer personalised settings, I wondered why this one didn't.

Aside from the linearity of the game, my major complaint was that _Loch Ness_ didn't seem as fully developed as it could have been. You were only given the bare bones of a story that could have been much more interesting. The NPC's were virtually unneccesary as none of them added anything, really. One in particular appeared from nowhere and had no discernable relationship to anything else. Fleshing out the story instead of relying on numerous cliche's could have helped a great deal and made the game last longer. Even after a slow start, I finished _Loch Ness_ in slightly over ten hours.

Still, I enjoyed _Loch Ness_. I would recommend it for a beginner, or for a more experienced gamer looking to fill in the gaps while waiting for more complex games.