Review by: Neilie Johnson

Teen sleuths the Hardy Boys are some of the oldest literary characters in American fiction whose perennial popularity makes them ideal for game development. At least that’s what Her Interactive is banking on with their new DS adventure game, The Hardy Boys: Treasure on the Tracks. In spite of the boys’ natural charisma, the developer has its work cut out for it since mediocre Hardy Boys titles previously released by Dreamcatcher are bound to have lessened their appeal.

Frank and Joe’s current case takes them aboard the Royal Express, a train that once belonged to the last Tsar of Russia. Said to hold the key to finding the lost Romanov gold, the train is off on a special trip from Paris to St. Petersburg, chock-full of ambitious treasure hunters: a belligerent German baron who claims to be the legitimate heir to the Romanov fortune, an English historian, a Russian art scholar and a French serving girl, all of whom appear to be hiding something. The boys set about investigating their fellow passengers (and snooping through their stuff) while attempting to unravel the legend of the fabled “golden train”.

The Royal Express takes the investigation to Vienna, Prague and Warsaw on the way to St. Petersburg, and it’s in these cities that the boys look for clues in a series of mysterious paintings commissioned by the Romanov family. Along the way, they’re approached via cell phone by an unknown agent of ATAC (American Teens Against Crime) who offers them help and information.

Treasure on the Tracks should be a home run point-and-click adventure. With well-loved characters, an interesting story idea and the DS as a platform, it has a lot going for it. Unfortunately the game is rife with problems. First, navigation is clumsy, relying on the stylus to reveal hidden arrows that appear inconsistently at either the bottom or the edge of the screen. The inconsistency continues through graphic indicators--sparkles--which are supposed to indicate that something is interactive, but which also occur on things that are shiny. As you can imagine, this leads to a lot of fruitless touch-screen jabbing.

The puzzles are repetitious and unimaginative. Every time you stop in a new town you’re asked to do the same uninteresting map puzzle again and you’re repeatedly asked to piece together torn badges, tickets and passes. The puzzles that aren’t repetitious often don’t make any sense. The clue to the bomb -defusing puzzle for instance, couldn’t be vaguer. To be fair, there are one or two interesting puzzle ideas, namely one involving a samovar and an old boot, and a rhythm mini-game that’s used when running from or stalking someone else. However, the overwhelming majority are ho-hum at best.

Other major disappointments are the short shrift given the locations and the graphics. During the case you stop in all these great European cities but you don’t get to explore them. The Hardys must be on one of those group vacations old people go on because they’re only allowed five minutes in each city.

Then there’s the uninteresting graphics. Despite the change of both developer and platform, the graphics are mediocre (that‘s being kind). The comic-book-style cut scenes are full of clumsy drawings and some of them--like the one of the conductor blowing a whistle and the train leaving the station--are used over and over. Worst of all, there’s such a long pause between gameplay and the start of the cut scenes you might think the game has crashed.

The Hardy Boys: Treasure on the Tracks is a disappointing title all around, which is shocking considering Her Interactive’s track record with the always-creative Nancy Drew series. Still, it’s only the first time out for the Hardys. Let’s hope they do better next time.