Mystery Case Files: Dire Grove Review

MCF: Dire Grove starts with the detective (that's you!) driving back through the English countryside after solving the mystery in MCF: Return to Ravenhearst. As you're driving, you are caught in a freak snowstorm that is so intense that your vision is entirely obscured, and you are forced to stop in a secluded village just off the motorway: Dire Grove.

As you approach the village, you find an abandoned car along the road. Investigating it, you come across scraps of paper and a video cassette containing disturbing information about a dark legend that had come to life. As you progress further into the village, you start to discover that something is really wrong here. The village seems abandoned, and you find more video cassettes showing recordings by a group of archaeology graduate students who had come to Dire Grove to investigate an ancient dark Celtic legend. And by the looks of it, they found what they were looking for...

The first thing you'll notice when playing MCF: Dire Grove is that the production values for this game have gone through the roof, much better than its already-impressive predecessors! All the art and music in the game are gorgeous and fit the theme and atmosphere brilliantly. To enforce the atmosphere of a snowstorm, you also have snowflakes and flying leaves moving all over the screen.

What stood out for me was the almost movie-like quality in the cutscenes. The intro scene and all the video clips showing the archaeology students and their misadventures are live action recordings. The acting is pretty decent and the recordings have an almost Blair Witch-like quality to them. All of this adds an extra dose of realism to the game, drawing you in like never before.

The gameplay of Dire Grove has also evolved from the basic hidden object gameplay of the earlier instalments in the MCF series. This game is an adventure and exploration game first, with hidden object gameplay and puzzle elements thrown in. You don't get mindlessly led from one hidden object scene to another. Instead, you need to use a bit of exploration and logic to decide what you should do to achieve your immediate goals and advance the plot. The game isn't extremely difficult to solve though; most of the objects of interest will have a slight sparkle to guide you along your path.

The hidden object scenes and the puzzles that appear as minigames are both of the standard that you would expect from a MCF game. The designs are crisp and clear, while the puzzles are difficult enough to require a moderate amount of thinking and planning, but not so difficult as to detract from the story or become a stumbling block.

There are also puzzles that span across multiple scenes. You might find a crowbar or a bunch of nails in one scene, and won't find a use for them till an hour or more later. There are also obstacles that require manipulating the scenes. For example, there's an object of interest on the top shelf in the garage. Now what can I find in the area that I can use to reach it?

As has been said before, the game has superb production values, and is a full-fledged adventure puzzle game that will draw you in for hours on end. What else can you expect from the developers of the Mystery Case Files series who have yet to disappoint?

Try the PC game here, or if you want additional bonus features, check out the Collector's Edition. Or you can get the basic version and the Collector's Edition of the Mac version.

Check out the other games in this series!

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