University Games

The head of an Antarctic research team is murdered. In such a remote location, the list of suspects is limited to the other members of the expedition. Who wanted the team captain dead, and why?

There is really nothing positive to say about this installment in this barely mediocre series of interactive mystery games.

The contents of the ‘case file’ are Spartan, to say the least. The story and its related clues are skimpy and thoroughly uninteresting. Most of the suspects (i.e. the other members of the expedition) don’t come into play at all; they’re not interviewed, their back stories are non-existent, & the majority of them are completely ignored. That really narrows the already scant pool of suspects to a limited few choices.

Almost all of the clues are online, which begs the question—why even bother with the pretense of a physical case file at all? Even then, the online materials don’t work. One of the phony websites that supposedly contains a clue vital to the solution of the crime didn’t function; when we tried to visit the website, all we got was a message that the site had been removed (&, yes, we did make sure we typed in the correct address).

The identity of the murderer was pretty obvious & we figured that out immediately. Because of the ridiculous online game components, we were not provided with the information needed to figure out the killer’s motive.

University Games should be ashamed of actually putting such a crappy product on the market.

If I could give this a negative star review, I definitely would. It certainly deserves it.

IN THEORY: These games should be an incredibly fun and entertaining way to spend an evening engaging with family & friends and pretending to be a detective.

IN REALITY: These games need a lot of work, fine-tuning, & conscientious quality control before they will actually be worth the money you have to pay for them.… (mais)