Customer Reviews

Nancy Drew Ultimate Bundle

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I only wish they would release all the earlier Nancy Drew games like this for Windows Vista. You get four games for the price of one. All of these games are good. If you are a ND fan and have not played these games yet, this is definitely worth the money. Even if you've already purchased one or two of them, it's still a good buy. This bundle is also Vista friendly. I had ordered The Haunted Carousel directly from Herinteractive because their website claimed you could use it with Vista. No, you can't. I've tried. Evidently, you need to be a computer whiz to load it. Thank goodness I have another computer with XP on it or it would have been a total waste of money. Watch out for the older Nancy Drew games Vista users!
The newer, less costly ND The Haunted Carousel runs fine on Vista computers.

This was an Xmas gift for my 10 year old daughter. This was our first foray into the Nancy Drew games. A niece enjoyed them so I thought we'd give them a try. We started with the 'The Secret of Shadow Ranch'. I was pleasantly surprised at how much was involved in solving the mystery. This took us longer than I expected to solve and we had a lot of fun along the way. I'll be looking for other bundles in this series to have on hand for those "boring, nothing to do" days.

It was a great choice for the price: $20.00. And I will universally praise how HER has integrated the modern technology of the cellphone (with its web connections and camera options) into the game. Well done.

#10 Shadow Ranch kicks off with a lot of doing basic chores more than solving mysteries. Learning to identify fresh vegetables and care for horses was was useful, but wasn't the most entertaining of pastimes. And the set up for the puzzles becomes unbelievable as the story progresses. No real woman would put up with that many obstacles put in her path by her supposed boyfriend; it shifts from entertaining and cute to if he hadn't have been killed she probably would have strangled him herself. On the positive side, you have 4 potential suspects and spend a lot of time interacting with them, so the actual modern mystery part was fulfilling. Rating: ***

#11 Curse of Blackmoor Manor initially looked to be the most interesting of the bunch as far as my tastes are concerned. It has astronomy, Greek muses, fairy changelings, and a friendly pet parrot. Yet it turned out to be my least favorite of the four games in this bundle. I think my irritation stems from having an obvious villain (the graphics for her face just scream villain before you ever get to a mystery), an unrealistic, annoyingly uncommunicative "friend" (Linda/her mother call for your help, but then will barely speak to you once you're there to help her with the mystery), issues with lighting in secret passages (I'm not a fan of small beams of light), moving rooms (poorly lit moving rooms just to amp up my irritation), puzzles that require too much back and forth between the rooms and the cellphone/inventory screens, too many side "games," and a mystery you can't actually take pro-active steps to solve (instead you are stuck in pointless puzzle land with things that have nothing to do with your actual case). Rating: *

#12 Secret of the Old Clock is a nice tribute to the original Nancy Drew story. It doesn't follow it precisely, but it does provide several good suspects, reasonably story-related puzzles for the first 3/4 of the game, and a kind of fun ending. Or maybe I just like the 30s. On the not so great side, the last 1/4 of the puzzles were ridiculous and solved by coincidentally having the correct information salted around the inn, it suffers from another unhelpful "friend" who makes herself an obstacle to you solving the case when she asked you for help in the first place, and the controls for the mini golf game were difficult to use. I do hope that HER will consider adapting some of the other original books. Rating: ****

#13 Last Train to Blue Moon is my favorite out of this set. It actually offers three mysteries to solve: two modern ones and one historical one. It gives you five/six suspects to interact with plus the Hardy Boys are along to talk with in person -- it's nice to have someone really on your side for once. Oh, and one of the characters is Charleena Purcell (in person rather than on the phone) from the Shadow Ranch game. It was a nice bit of consistancy to have a character you've met before show up again. The historical puzzles are pretty good, with only one relying on convenient coincidence. My only irritation was in trying to find a simple piece of paper. This should not have been an irritating task since paper is a readily available item, and the paper you actually end up using would not actually work well for the purpose you have in mind. Oh, and the reappearance of "villain face." The character designer should be a bit less obvious about things. It felt odd to have Nancy so easily outpace the Hardy Boys, there's two of them, yet they're content to both sit around and read while you run all over the place solving three mysteries before they can solve one, but it was useful for the sake of the game. Rating: *****

First I must admit that the price was right for getting four games. That's why I purchased it in the first place.
But I was so disappointed to find 3 out of 4 ghost stories in the package. Was looking for a good mystery,Something with suspense, not creepy! The only one without the "ghost story" was secret of the old clock and that one had a creepy paranormal guy in it. I personally Don't like that sort of thing and I would never recommend it. Yet, I have played some of Nancy drews games and enjoyed them, like "lights, camera, curses" and "resorting to danger". I think it's wise to use the "test it out" download or search on the web to see what the game you are choosing to buy is all about. (I find that Amazon is the BEST place to buy game downloads-this I highly recommend!!!!) I just took it for granted that since it was nancy drew it would be something I would like. I'm sure that for some, this game is great but for me, just didn't hit the mark of the game type I was looking for.

The makers of the fabulous Nancy Drew games take 4 of our favorite, upgrade it to windows vista and sell it for a great price. I wish they would do this for all their games!

There are 4 games included in this package
Secret of Shadow Ranch
Curse of Blackmoore Manor
Secret of the Old Clock
Last Train to Blue Moon Canon

All of these games are great games. I personally enjoyed playing each one many times over. The plots and charecters are developed nicely with some snooping thrown in.

Secret of Shadow Ranch
This mystery is based off the Nancy Drew book, Secret of Shadow Ranch. Nancy is invited to a farm in Arizona. When she arrives, her host is bitten by a snake and is hospitalized. Many acts of sabotage follow. Nancy soon discovers that the saboteur believes there is a hidden treasure on the ranch and is trying to drive everyone off the ranch so he/she can find it. Can Nancy catch the saboteur before its too late.
Charecters
Shorty- the friendly cook who dreams of striking it rich. But can his get rich ideas take him too far.
Tex- can the gruff rancher be hiding something behind his rough facade.
Dave- the handsome rancher (he has a cruch on Nancy) has a sick uncle who really needs some money...sometimes desparate times call for desparate measures.
Mary-she wanted to buy a piece of land from Nancy's hosts..but they refused. Can she be out for revenge?

Curse of Blackmoor Manor
This is the scariest Nancy Drew mystery (I've played them all). The puzzles are very difficult in this game.
Nancy travels to England to try and discover why Linda Pennvlyn is behaving so strangly.
Charecters
Mrs. Drake- Linda's husband's aunt. She loves her plants and hates noise.
Jane- Linda's stepdaughter, she can never refuse an offer to play a game.
Nigel Mookergee-a researcher studying the Penvelyn family history.
The ending was a bit dull after all the suspense but its a fun game once you get a hang of the puzzles.

Secret of The Old Clock
Based on the Secret of the Old Clock and the Mystery of Lilac In.
Nancy goes to visit Emily, a friend of a friend who has just lost her mom. While Nancy is there theres a fire in the inn's kitchen and Emily's jewelery is stolen. If only her neighbor Josiah would have left her money like he promised..now she'll have to sell her in.
Charecters
Emily- She claims to hear noises in her room, can she be losing it after her mom's death.
Jane (Emily's guardian)- Emily's mom wrote to her asking her to be Emily's guardian if anything ever happened to her. Well, she tries her best but it doesn't seem to be helping.
Richard Topham- a big believer in supernatural powers, he moved in next door to the inn after Emily's neighbor Josiah Crowly died.
Jim- the jolly banker, but is business as good as he says it is?
Nancy also drives around town (delivering telgrams for extra money) in her blue roadster. Driving is a lot of fun.
This game is one of the easier ones, great for beginners.

Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon
Nancy partners with the Hardy Boys to solve a century old mystery. The wealthy Lori Girard takes Nancy, the Hardy boys and 3 celberties
Charleena Purcell- famous romance novel writer (she's a phone friend in the Secret of Shadow Ranch)
John Grey- ghosthunter
Tino Balducci- a police detective that managed to catch a big bank robber, but he's all talk no action.
aboard an old miners train to try and find his mine and the secret it holds.

I enjoyed this game a lot. You play both the Hardy boys and Nancy. You get to meet Fatima- hands down the funniest charecter in the game and play short order cook. The plot and charecters are a bit dull but the puzzles are fun and the Hardy boys are a great addition.

Bought this bundle of Nancy Drew games to play with my daughter (age 9) during the rainy winter months. (windows PC) We have had hours & hours of fun with it, and we enjoy the variety of story lines and puzzles. The puzzles are good brain-teasers, and then there are some that are just fun to do like gathering eggs in a henhouse or driving a car around town. Great way to bond with your daughter (or son!) and still entertaining for the parent. Wholesome & not-too-scary!

WOW!!!! I just finished the final title in this bundle! 4 games for the price of 1... Need I say more?
Mystery, Intrigue, Who done it? I just can't seem to get enough of these games. I fell in love with them after receiving one for Christmas and with this purchase (and another I got from Amazon at the same time) I now have a total of 7 of the titles... out of (so far) 19 available titles.

I had played those games before. In fact, I've played every single Nancy Drew games that had been released. I bought this bundle that has four of my favorites Nancy's game so I can play them over and over.

If you would like to solve puzzles in a story-base case and enjoy some silliness while exploring in a computer generated virtual world, you might want to try those games. One thing I like Nancy's game so much is the game seems to know my foolish thoughts and interact with them, such as getting woozy when Nancy pigging out those Koko Kringle bars from Renee's cabinet! LOL~

Love it! -Cecilia

I would love to play this game,
but unfortunately, I don't know why, but the game will not install
on my laptop. My aunt sent this to me for something to do, I tried
to install it...but it never works and I don't know why....
None of the CDS will work for me. -sigh-

This kept me busy for several days before I beat all of them. Secret of Shadow Ranch was fun. You get to go outside and explore several spots and ride a horse, too! You also learn a lot about the 19th century west. It was also really hard to guess who did the crime. Curse of Blackmoor Manor was a lot of fun. I love how it takes place in England. It was one of the hardest Nancy Drew games out there for people who like a challenge! The house is very beautiful and you can explore almost all of the rooms. The Secret of the Old Clock is one of my favorites! It is Nancy Drew's first case in 1930 and you can drive an old Roadster around town. It has a very vintage feel and good music. I love all the secret passages you find, too. The Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon was also really hard and quite a challenge! It was a lot of fun. It mostly takes place on a train, obviously and you can explore all of the rooms, too. You also get to work with the Hardy Boys in this one.
I highly recommend this one for a good first buy. You get quite an introduction to these games for the price of one game and these are some of the best ones, too!