9 Clues 2 The Ward Switch NSP Free Download GAMESPACK.NET

9 Clues 2 The Ward Switch NSP Free Download GAMESPACK.NET Artifex Mundi return after one of their longer hiatuses – there hasn’t been an Xbox hidden object game since May, five months ago – and this time it’s a sequel to 9 Clues: The Secret of Serpent Point. Clumsily titled 9 Clues 2: The Ward, it carries on the 9 Clues formula. Instead of campy sorcerers stealing damsels in distress, the 9 Clues series attempts a more horrific tone. Things are less Princess Bride, more Ringu. Artifex also like each of their numbered series to have a signature move, and it’s no different with 9 Clues. You are a private investigator, and that means occasionally stumbling across crime scenes. Something terrible has happened, and your task is to identify everything that is out of place, from a tumbled chair to a ripped curtain. Once you’ve completed this cousin to a spot-the-difference, you have to sequence them: how did the crime develop?  As signatures go, it’s memorable but – as with 9 Clues: The Secret of Serpent Point – it’s rather leaden as a game mechanic goes. Artifex Mundi are so scared that these sequences will prove difficult that they wrap them up in cotton wool and make them challenge-free.TOP/BEST ADULT VIDEO GAMES IN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (USA)

9 Clues 2 The Ward Switch NSP Free Download GAMESPACK.NET

The cursor helpfully changes state whenever you hover over a disturbance in a crime scene, and the evidence is helpfully colour-coded and framed, so working out the sequence is just a case of lining them up in gradient order. These signature moments often make us feel like an old lady being helped across the road. There is no point coming to an Artifex Mundi hidden object game for the story, and the same is true here. It feels like two writers fought over whether 9 Clues 2: The Ward. One thought it should have been an intense Japanese horror, while the other one wanted to make an overblown, Joel Schumacher Batman movie, with the Sandman from Arkham Asylum as the main character. These two writers both get their way, and it shows. You are a young detective in the 1950s, who receives a call from a troubled therapist at the Mnemosyne Asylum. You and your partner Owen make your way to the Asylum, only to be greeted by the same therapist jumping out of the window as you arrive, which is no way to make an entrance. As is the case with most asylums in modern media, the orderlies are suspicious and mean, and the inmates are worried.

Eerie story set in a psychiatric hospital in 1950s America.

A fedora’d villain with Wolverine claws is stalking the asylum, and there’s whispers of a past wrong that they are avenging. It’s so pulpy that it’s become apple juice. Various film and TV references are employed liberally. Most noticeably, the dialogue and voice acting is creaky as a Resident Evil door. Owen is painfully over-cockneyed, and a nurse has a monotone drawl that syphons life energy out of our body every time she talks. People are dying all over the shop, and the script barely registers the fact. Characters sigh and get on with what they’re doing, and nobody bothers to call the police or, you know, clean up a bit. Even in Artifex Mundi terms, the story and the people who perform within it are distracting. The island is isolated by freezing waters and constant, brutal storms. Upon the detectives’ arrival, one of the hospital’s therapists falls out of the window to his death. As their investigation begins, the detectives learn much darker things are happening at Mnemosyne Asylum than they could have guessed. None of the patients are willing to speak about the devastating fire that engulfed the hospital four years ago, or the fire’s victims. UNCHARTED Legacy of Thieves Collection

9 Clues 2 The Ward Switch NSP Free Download GAMESPACK.NET

The staff do everything they can to obscure the asylum’s past, and keep the façade of peace and order intact. Each new clue only raises more questions. Who killed Doctor Crow? What drove one of the male nurses insane? Who is Zed Rascov? Why is the name of a little girl, Ginger, carved into the wood-paneled wall of the dead doctor’s office? A young detective and her partner respond to a distress call from a psychiatric hospital on a secluded island isolated by freezing waters and constant, brutal storms. Upon their arrival, one of the hospital’s therapists falls out of the window to his death. As their investigation continues, the detectives learn darker things have been happening at Mnemosyne Asylum than they could have ever imagined. None of the patients are willing to speak about the devastating fire that engulfed the hospital four years ago, or the fire’s victims. The staff do everything they can to obscure the asylum’s past, and keep the facade of peace and order intact. Each new clue only raises more questions. 9 Clues 2: The Ward is Artifex Mundi jumping the proverbial shark.

42 atmospheric locations.

Though their library isn’t quite the flawless lineup their “premium” branding would have you believe, by and large Artifex Mundi’s hidden-object adventure games (referred to henceforth as HOGs) hit far more than they miss, especially given the fact that they seem to release half a dozen of them in any given month. They consistently manage to strike that perfect balance between above average production values, simple but enjoyable puzzle designs, and storylines just earnest enough to be entertaining, having by now ascended to be the bar at which all other HOGs are judged. The first 9 Clues game, Secret of Serpent Creek (credited to Tap It Games, but so indistinguishable from Artifex Mundi’s own games that the distinction between them as developer or publisher seems a moot point), continues to rank as my favorite HOG to date, taking all the tenants of Artifex Mundi’s trademark design and wrapping them up into a lighthearted but endearing mystery thriller. Though it shares the same series, The Ward is not only a dramatic departure from the previous 9 Clues but from Artifex Mundi’s HOGs in general.Lord of Imagination: Loose Ends

9 Clues 2 The Ward Switch NSP Free Download GAMESPACK.NET

The Ward can best be summed up as Artifex Mundi going through a phase of overwhelming teen angst. Cue the inexplicable violence. Cue the barely intelligible plotlines designed for MAXIMUM DRAMA. Cue the misunderstood sociopath who was only murdering people because another sociopath told them to (it’s OK though, they’re actually good, I swear, so let’s just forget all that murder business). If Secret of Serpent Creek was trying to be Scooby-doo, The Ward wants to be Shutter Island. It’s aggressively grim and (for a HOG) shockingly grotesque in both its story beats and how little it hesitates to delve headfirst into the most disturbing of subject matter. And this is where The Ward lost me. Even before its narrative turned into a convoluted mush of character reversals, deus ex machinas, and astoundingly convenient circumstances (again, even for HOG standards), The Ward alienated me with how little it cared. Where past Artifex Mundi games verged upon the repugnantly earnest, The Ward is a melting pot of “mature” themes and purposeless cruelty handled with even less care than you’d expect from this style of game.

19 challenging mini-games.

I’m not sure if The Ward came from a place unsatisfied with the casual branding of HOGs or if Artifex Mundi just ran out of ideas and started scrubbing through horror films for inspiration, but the second 9 Clues has managed to eject every ounce of the first game’s charm and replaced it with a nauseatingly poor attempt at tackling “adult” themes. It’s all downhill from there, as the narrative flounders around attempting to find itself, puzzles become more obscure and tedious, and a veritable cornucopia of bad accents meander through lines as if the voice actors are simultaneously bored and learning to read for the first time. I even ran into some graphical bugs, which apart from being the most amusing part of the game cement how thrown together The Ward feels. I suppose it was bound to happen eventually that Artifex Mundi would release a colossal dud given the speed of their production process, but with how much I loved the first 9 Clues I’m sad that The Ward had to be the one to break the formula. The Ward exists then as a reminder of why we can’t have nice things. Only exploitative representations of mental illness and thoughtless depictions of suicide. Try not to cut yourself on all this edge.

Unusually for the genre, there’s no item that is used on another item, so you don’t have to go trawling your inventory for combinations. We found it strangely refreshing. Our focus was solely on the scenes in front of us, and it gave everything a degree of simplicity, without making things too easy. There’s the odd moment where we found items that clearly would have been useful – hammers and knives are surprisingly common in this asylum – but couldn’t pick them up. Otherwise, the point-and-click stuff was logical and satisfying. Hidden object scenes were as painterly and effective as usual. 9 Clues 2: The Ward likes to return to old tableaux, which we’re a fan of. It means you can hoover up the remaining items in a painting that you know like the back of your hand – if your hand was covered in detritus. There’s a few items that make no sense at all (what are ‘kins’ when they’re at home?), but generally these sequences are as good as you’d expect from the publisher, if not better. Minigames are sparse, too, which was to our tastes. While it’s nice to have the pace broken by a sliding puzzle, some hidden object games whack you round the head with them, like you were playing a Professor Layton title.

9 Clues 2 The Ward Switch NSP Free Download GAMESPACK.NET

Here, they are employed sparingly, and they were familiar and simple enough for us to unlock the achievement for never skipping one. If a frictionless playthrough is what you’re after, 9 Clues 2: The Ward offers it, and an easy 1000G for one playthrough to boot. All in all, 9 Clues 2: The Ward is a mid-tier hidden object game. If you’ve already fallen into the Artifex web, and wait for each release with slobber around your chin and a magnifying glass in your hand, then 9 Clues 2: The Ward will not disappoint. It does the hidden object basics with aplomb, and – at least to our tastes – has the right mix of hidden objecting, puzzles and exploration. But the flaws of most Artifex Mundi games are all the more glaring here. The story and voice acting here are bargain basement, and the attempts at offering something new, in the form of crime-scene investigations, are about as challenging as rolling out bed in the morning. They may as well not be there. The Ward” is the second installment in the 9 Clues series, in which a young detective and her partner respond to a distress call from a psychiatric hospital on a secluded island. The island is isolated by freezing waters and constant, brutal storms. Upon the detectives’ arrival, one of the hospital’s therapists falls out of the window to his death.Beacon Pines Switch NSP

ADD ONS/PATCHES AND DLC’S: 9 Clues 2 The Ward Switch NSP