There’s an old saying: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. This motto quickly sums up how I felt about Safecracker making its jump from the PC to the Wii. Since I played the original PC version, I can’t help but compare it to the Wii version and while the former was released three years ago, it trumps its successor in almost every way.

Safecracker’s simple story focuses on the antics of a recently deceased billionaire. When Duncan W. Adams shuffles off this mortal coil, his family not surprisingly wants a piece of his sweet, sweet riches. However, the eccentric old man didn’t make things easy for his surviving relatives, as he hid his will somewhere in his cavernous mansion. Furthermore, as Adams was a fan of intricate and complex safes, it’s very likely that the important document is tucked away inside one of the 35 safes located in his house. Since the family wants their money they hire you, the greatest safecracker in the land, to find that will.

The game is essentially point-and-click, as you use the Wiimote to press buttons, flick on switches, and turn knobs on the various safes that you encounter. You use the Nunchuck to rotate the camera. Although the environment appears to be three dimensional and you can move the camera 360 degrees, this is just an illusion. Instead, the walls are merely two-dimensional images cobbled together to create a sense of depth.

One major issue with this two-dimensional environment is that you’re limited in mobility. While you can move the camera, you can’t easily walk across the room. When you take a step, you encounter a load screen that takes you to the next part of the house or room. Since there are many rooms in the house and each room can consist of two movements, this adds up to a large number of loading screens. While this wasn’t noticeable in the PC version, it’s more jarring in the Wii version, as it takes several seconds. It’s rather disruptive to gameplay to have to sit through a loading screen every time you want to take a step.

The 35 puzzle safes that you encounter are quite challenging and at times hair-pullingly difficult. Some require you to decode a certain phrase, while others involve deciphering a pattern. Some safes are connected, in that you need to solve one to obtain the key or password to unlock another. At times solving a puzzle requires some outside knowledge, such as knowing the rules to some obscure sport or game, which I don’t think is fair. Depending on how good you are in solving puzzles (or how often you cheat and Google the solutions!), it can take you from a few hours to perhaps even a few days to finish the game.