DS Review: 1912 Titanic Mystery

One could ask, upon seeing the title of this game, What possible Titanic mystery could there really be? The ship went down, end of story! Well, this game isn't about that....not entirely, anyhow.

In this game, you're not even traveling on the Titanic itself - rather, the game takes place in 2012 (ooooh, ominous year there...) - 100 years to the day of the original Titanic's voyage. You'll be travelling on the Titanic II - which looks identical to its fateful predecessor, but is updated with modern techology to keep things safer. However, there's a mysterious passenger on board who's written you a secret anonymous letter, telling you that they've planted a bomb somewhere on the ship that will detonate soon if you do not uncover a set number of clues around the ship to find out who this person is and where they've hidden the bomb.

In between searching for clues, you'll be speaking with your crew on the ship, who'll more or less just be there to tell you random facts about the original Titanic. (This proves to be more of an educational game than anything.) As you search the ship - which is drawn out in EXCRUTIATING detail to look photograph-esque, might I add - you'll find portions of long lost diary entries of someone who travelled and survived the original Titanic's voyage, and details an intricate love story (think Jack and Rose) that took place on the ship before it went down.

Most of your gameplay will be in levels that are much like I Spy, with a few additional mini-games thrown in here and there to keep things interesting. There's a whopping 19 chapters... Despite this game being rated for ages 3 and up, I doubt there's ANY young child who could appreciate (or even read) such a storyline, but even the ending if you do find the bomb in time and have to cut the wires to keep it from detonating... This doesn't seem very appropriate for a young child to be playing. However, if you have a child about 10 years old or older who'd like to play this, I'd say go ahead - they'd probably learn quite a bit from this game! The game itself ends all too soon... I wish it were longer, but how long can one really drag something like this out? It's a fairly simple, and yet at the same time, complex game. I liked it. I'm going to go ahead and rate it a 7 out of 10 iceburgs. (Oh....too soon?)