Nancy Drew: The White Wolf of Icicle Creek (Wii)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 2.5 stars OK
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 5.5 (2.5 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Brett Todd
• Reviewed on: 01/30/2009
• Released on: 12/02/2008
• Originally published on GameSpot: Nancy Drew: The White Wolf of Icicle Creek (Wii) Review

As fiction's foremost girl detective, Nancy Drew has found herself in the midst of some pretty strange cases. The White Wolf of Icicle Creek is certainly one of her most puzzling escapades, although the biggest mystery to be solved here is why it is taking place on the Nintendo Wii. While there isn't anything horribly wrong with this first-person point-and-click adventure, it fails to take advantage of the system's innovative controls in any meaningful ways. This is essentially the same game that was released on the PC well over a year ago, albeit with a few annoying minigames tacked on to remind you that you're swinging a remote instead of scrolling a mouse.

The plot remains the same as in the 2007 game. Nancy has been asked to visit the remote Icicle Creek lodge in the Canadian Rockies to investigate a series of suspicious accidents apparently related to a curse put on the area by, you guessed it, a supernatural white wolf. If Nancy doesn't figure out what's going on soon, these occurrences might drive the resort out of business. The story is exactly what you would expect from a Nancy Drew mystery; you get a setting in the snowy northern wilderness and lots of weirdness to unravel while dumb older people wander around without a clue.

You probably won't be able to get through The White Wolf of Icicle Creek without being annoyed, though. As in previous games in the Nancy Drew series, the spunky sleuth mixes a lot of chores in with her mystery solving. Nancy is at the lodge undercover, working as a member of the housekeeping staff so she can spy on the guests and see if any of them are involved in the skulduggery. Yet while this role lets Nance hide her status as one of the world's greatest detectives, it also saddles her with a lot of dreary tasks. You have to start off each day by making beds, gathering up towels, and cooking meals. There are also arcade challenges, such as dueling a local brat in snowball fights, racing a snowmobile across the frozen wastes to check avalanche conditions, and full-contact ice fishing. All of these activities are handled with the Wii Remote. So when called upon to whip up lunch for lodge guests, you mime creating the goodies, like quesadillas, by jerking the remote around. To grate cheese, for instance, you shake the remote from side to side, while chopping tomatoes is done by pulling the controller up and down to mimic wielding a kitchen knife.

These odd jobs were also present in the PC version of the game, but they were handled with mouse scrolling, and you could coast through them on autopilot. Here, you have to spend time getting the remote motions down pat as well as deal with erratic controller sensitivity. Everything feels off, either requiring overly intense movements (cheese grating demands a frenzied remote shaking that would be more apt if you were playing maracas) or a really light touch. The same goes for actions such as snowmobiling, which is little more than a demolition derby ride. If you go fast enough to have a little fun, you inevitably go boom against snowy rocks. If you go slow enough to make it to your destination intact, you might fall asleep on the way.

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Nancy Drew: The White Wolf of Icicle Creek (Wii): $16.88 - $28.99

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VideoGameAll.com	$28.99	No

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