Most TV game franchises brand their property all over the market. They will put the game on every handheld device, phone and toilet paper dispenser. Her Interactive the makers of the Nancy Drew series have taken their stamp to another type of video game. Previously they released about twenty point and click adventures, like the last one I reviewed before Halloween. Those were usually good to excellent and got better than average scores. Those all moved along and had fair to good animations and graphics.

The new Nancy Drew Dossier series is somewhat retro. We are waiting for the Wii version of White Wolf of Icicle Creek that is due on December 2. It could be merely a port from PC to console though. The Dossier series premier goes after the PC download market instead of progressing the franchise to 3D and taking it anywhere forward.

The game – play clues take place through the operation of a magnifying glass. You mouse over each background until a sparkle flash and a twinkly noise alert you that you’ve found something. Your tool bar includes a hand, an eye, lock-picks and a flash light. The other tool use besides the magnifyer is minimal and trivial. When you scroll over an item instead of it opening or revealing its contents, you have to pick the eye or hand icons. It has regressed from the action adventures into a seek and find puzzle. The items not only have to be discovered, but they also have to link up in some way. A screwdriver will pry open a locker, a key for a lock, a switch for glow in the dark paint to discover more clues.

The game – play is mostly annoying. The scenes in between levels are sepia and white, with a few interesting lighting and motion effects, but it is cartooned instead of animated. The levels are inside a sound stage where a Egyptian themed movie and presumably murder has taken place. The backgrounds that host the seek and find puzzles are somewhat interesting with the most memorable being the reptile room with dark creepy things slithering around that you need to capture. There are no hints. The game is dead on linear and if you can’t figure out where a clue is or how to put the items together, then you are stuck.

There are mini games which are in the the Arcade menu once you have encountered them. They are all like the making smoothies game where something drops. Pick a lock, is a wannabe Tetris type game that has dropping yellow or orange cubes that have to be matched. The decrypting computer data game, was moderately addictive mainly due to the colors and sound effects. It didn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the game art style at all. That mini – game deserves to be broken out from the series and developed into something vaster like Meteos for DS. On the whole the puzzles and mini games were below average and disappointing.

The new conversation window drags on with long voiced over dialog. You have to respond with answers about clues or people to gain points. I fast forwarded through the tedious blabbing as much as possible and still managed to guess all the questions correctly. Lights, Camera, Curses! uses a point system on the matches, conversations and mini-games which doesn’t lead to much.

Unlike previous Nancy Drew games this departure doesn’t hold up. It is about average compared to other seek and find puzzle series, the best being Women’s Murder Club and perhaps being the worst of the downloadable puzzle games. The graphics are in some places well done hand drawn film-noir and Egyptian art. But hand drawn art at this low level isn’t up to par in modern video games. This certainly isn’t Okami.

There are many complaints the action bar commands, the lackluster graphics, and the tedious game play. On the whole this one is generally unsatisfying and pointless. There is a difference between ease of use in a game and an game that is too easy which is what is lost on this first effort in the Dossier Series. If the market they are looking to gain is women, then they haven’t got enough here to keep a mature gamers attention. Lights, Camera, Curses! doesn’t lead in the hidden object genre, it follows and not very well. I give Nancy Drew Lights, Camera, Curses! 5 cliche costumes out of 10.