[MystGirl]

In case you're wondering why I have so many reviews in this section, I just really enjoy writing my own review of a game. (I'm a very longwinded person. Heh)

This, is very, very spooky, and well made mystery game. I haven't played the first Dark Fall game yet, which I've heard is much better. But since I've only played one Dark Fall game so far, this one was good enough for me.

You play Benjamin Parker, a cartographer, sent to map the harbor town Trewarthan. However, this town is not what it seems. Apparently, there's an evil presence in the lighthouse you explore there in the area of Fetch Rock. You must solve the mystery of this spirit as you explore the lighthouse and some other areas in four different time eras.

Eventually, as you progress in the game, you learn how to "time travel" back and forth. At the beginning of the game you meet a character face to face who tells you, you need go to the lighthouse to find out what happened there. You also "encounter" a character named Polly, a ghost hunter, trying to contact the beyond in the lighthouse.

There are spooky voices, sounds, and eventually ghosts to run into.

The game's backgrounds, are sufficiently spooky, detailed, with some nice meloncholy music throughout the game. There are footsteps behind you sometimes. I actually got pretty spooked in some areas of this game. I'd say out of Barrow Hill, and Scratches, this is the spookiest I've played out of the three. (in my personal opinion) This game has a very eerie feel to it, in all four time eras you explore.

On the back of the game, it says it has "numerous characters", but the only human I ran into face to face, was the character in the beginning and Polly, the ghost hunter. (and she only spoke to me behind a door, I never actually met her face to face) I'm not sure where the other characters are, but I use walkthroughs heavily, so I might have missed some areas, as I went along.

This game is rated "T" for teen. I'm kind of torn on this rating, because while Barrow Hill and Scratches could be played by much younger players, this game, in my opinion, is a bit spookier overall. A younger child then 13 could play this game, if you feel your child handles spooky games well. Kids are so mature these days. 10-year-olds are playing horror games like DOOM 3 for example. So this game would probably be tame to them, if they can handle console games that are downright twisted. Use your own personal discretion with this game, as you do with anything else you think your child could handle.

This game has puzzles, items to examine, items to pick up, etc. You spend most of your time in the lighthouse in the eras of 2004 and 1912, along with some surrounding areas, etc. There are two other time eras you discover, but I don't want to spoil too much.

The voice acting was very good.

The only complaint I had about this game, was it can be hard to navigate in certain areas, especially the 1912 era when you first arrive, because it's so dark everywhere. I had to turn the contrast and brightness on my monitor all the way up in this area, when I first got there, to help "see" things better. You'll also find you're standing a little too close to areas to see certain things. You have to change your position, since this is a point and click, frame to frame game, instead of being able to just back up and look down sometimes.

Just make sure you turn every direction, when you enter a new room, area, etc, so that you don't miss anything. And move your cursor over everything, since the "looking glass" cursor doesn't show up unless you move it to the very edge of a screen sometimes, or the very bottom. Turn around if you need to, to reposition yourself, to move forward if you get kind of stuck in an area. A forward arrow shows up, to let you know, you can move forward in that direction.

I enjoyed this game quite a bit, and liked the different time eras to explore. Unique twist to a mystery.