Product Description

A night at the movies turns into a nightmare for you, as Nancy Drew, when the final premiere at the Royal Palladium becomes a disappearing act for a friend. The historic theater will be demolished in just three days, and Nancy's sure her friend Maya is being held captive inside as ransom for the building. Is it a publicity stunt or a misguided scheme? Nancy must race against the clock to find Maya and expose a kidnapper who grows more desperate with each day's delay.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4248 in Video Games
• Color: The Final Scene
• Brand: Her Interactive
• Released on: 2001-11-07
• ESRB Rating: Everyone
• Platforms: Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows XP, Windows 95
• Format: CD-ROM

Features

• Use your best detective skills to help Nancy save her kidnapped friend
• Discover hidden passageways and secret rooms
• Untangle a web of secret deals and betrayals
• Gameplay divided into three days for enhanced plot linearity
• Ages 10 and older

Amazon.com Review
Pop The Final Scene into your CD-ROM drive, fire it up, and you're greeted with the most gripping opening sequence yet in a Nancy Drew game. As the ageless, mystery-cracking heroine yourself, you accompany your friend Maya to an historical--yet dilapidated--theater to interview teen heartthrob Brady Armstrong for the opening of his new movie. As Maya disappears into the dressing room for the interview, you hear a scream, but when you charge in to investigate Maya is nowhere to be found. The question is, do you have what it takes to track down Maya's kidnapper before the theater is demolished?

The most notable improvement in the game comes in the form of the distinctive characters. With each game, the script and character work get better and better. The dialog has a nice youthfulness and sense of humor missing from the previous games. We also loved the choice of the old theater for a setting and the magic theme running throughout, but wished there were more nooks and crannies to explore. Additionally, we had some installations troubles, but Her Interactive assures us that those problems have been resolved, so all current versions should be fine.

A minor nitpick is that the timeframe seemed somewhat limiting. Previous Nancy Drew games had an open feel, there was no sense of urgency, and you solved the mystery in your own time. In The Final Scene, the gameplay is divided into three days, and you must accomplish specific tasks before you can move on to the next day. Though this structure lent itself well to the game's plot, it was also easy to get stuck on one clue. However, you can always consult the message boards at Her Interactive's Web site for help, clues, hints, and general support from an enthusiastic community of Nancy Drew lovers.

Little grumblings aside, The Final Scene really is a fabulous game that goes above and beyond most games out there right now, and is highly recommended for kids and adults alike. (Ages 10 and older) --Ara Jane Olufson

Amazon.com Product Description
Nancy travels to St. Louis to visit her old friend Maya and attend the premiere of a new blockbuster movie at the Royal Palladium Theater. The historic theater is scheduled for demolition in just three days and Maya is covering the controversial story. But when Maya is kidnapped just before her big interview with the movie's leading man, Brady Armstrong, Nancy's night out at the movies turns into a nightmare.

She's convinced that the kidnapper is hiding Maya in the mysterious theater in a desperate attempt to halt the demolition, but no one believes her. Nancy must juggle her efforts between searching for her friend, proving to the police that Maya is really in the theater, and finding a way to stop the demolition. It's not long before Nancy begins to unravel the tangled history of the theater's ownership, a web of secret deals and betrayals surrounding Harry Houdini, the world's greatest escape artist.

Will this information help Nancy save the day? Can Nancy afford to gamble with time when her friend's days are numbered? Play the game and find out. Use your best detective skills to explore this once grand theater in a frantic quest for clues, secret passageways, hidden rooms--anything that will help you find your friend. Her life depends on it. Tick-tock!

Customer Reviews

A Thrilling Mystery.
After playing all 5 Nancy Drew games, I can fairly say that this is one of the best. I do not think that it was the best for one reason: in the other mysteries, what you had to do next was either clear cut, or Bess, George or Ned would give you hints as to what to do next. In this game, they were a bit tougher on you, giving you clues such as "Start questioning your subjects...see if they have plausible alibis" but once you did...they said the same thing (not telling you that your subject had more to say.)Other than that, it was thrilling and intriguing. Once it DID get started it was so exciting that things just rolled along. It was a great deal of fun, and I will definitely play it again and again.

Some hints:
1. Never leave a room unsearched, anything that you find can further your investigation, and if it doesn't at least you will be sure that you didn't miss anything.
2. Try and get around your suspects, read into their personal lives...do what detectives do best (snoop ;-) )
3. Lastly, trust no one except you, Bess, George and Ned. Never let all of your hopes ride on the innocence of one suspect. Things are never as they seem in Nancy's world, so try and act the same way towards it in your own.

Happy Gaming!

Could I give it anything less than 5 stars?
Like the other Nancy Drew games, "The Final Scene" was great. In each Nancy Drew game, you get to be the famous detective and solve a mystery. It's not easy, though. You have to search for clues and find secret passageways. You maneuver through the game with your mouse, using arrows and magnifying glasses on the screen -- and sometimes, trinkets and trapdoors can only be found by viewing them at a particular angle. This allows for hours of fun -- or hours of being stuck, whatever. (This is what the HerInteractive site's message boards are for!)

The graphics in this game are incredible. The people look 3-D and although they do look a bit robotic, they're realistic and believable. The attention to detail is amazing as well. The scenery is beatiful -- there are cool things to look at that don't really pertain to your mystery, but then again, you don't KNOW for sure if they do or not -- it's always good to keep your eyes open and remember where certain things are.

The dialogue is clever and witty, and often funny and silly (but in a good way). My only complaint on this subject is the fact that sometimes the dialogue doesn't make sense -- sometimes a character speaking to you will tell you to try doing something you've already done, and Nancy (you) will say "OK, I'll try that" -- when in fact you've already done it! Obviously the game's programming can't handle ANY eventuality. But whatever. This is a small thing and it is a small annoyance at the most.

"The Final Scene" is so fun. All I can ask for in the next Nancy Drew game (and please, PLEASE keep making them!) is more puzzles (there were about five in this game; all pleasantly challenging) and, also, give us more game time! The box says it can take over 20 hours. I did the senior level and had it completed in 6 or 7. Then again, I'm in my twenties. (Yes! Adults, do not be ashamed to play this! I have gotten several of my friends hooked! However, I've also played one of the other games with a 10-year-old... she needed a little help but did pretty well on her own, so this is for all ages!) Also, like many people, I've played the other four games -- so I guess after awhile you get the hang of the games and that makes them go faster.

Synopsis: if you want many hours of good, mind-boggling and exciting fun, buy this game. Nancy Drew rocks!

Great training for more advanced puzzle games
There's a series of Nancy Drew detective stories out. These are great games for any puzzle solver in your life, young or old, male or female!

In this installment, Nancy Drew is in St Louis to visit a friend, Maya. Her friend is kidnapped, and Nancy has three days to help rescue her before a theater is torn down - perhaps with Maya inside it!

I was very encouraged to find Nancy done as an intelligent young woman who was still very realistic. Other games involving female heroines, like The Longest Journey and Syberia, tend to make them 'girly' and bubble-headed. This definitely isn't the case with Nancy. Nancy loves to chat with her friends and boyfriend, and shows her youth, but she also has a level head and intelligence.

The game is on a relatively small map, so you're not trekking around from world to world. You get to know the theater quite well, and the few people that you deal with. On one hand this is good, because you don't have hours of wandering back and forth to do. On the other hand, this can get frustrating. You've already talked to the main people involved ... but suddenly after doing one trigger action they've vanished, or have thought up something new to say? And you don't ask the obvious questions like 'where were you?' until much later? So you end up wandering around the theater, going back to every single room, going to talk to every person, multiple times until they move into their 'next stage' of conversation.

I played at the senior level, but found most of the puzzles extremely easy. The two puzzles I didn't solve immediately were both incredibly annoying. In one, I read the manual several times and tried everything I could think of to get the pieces to spin. I must have clicked on the pieces hundreds of times. But apparently I wasn't clicking on the piece in the exact right spot, and my boyfriend had to fight with it for a while before chancing on that. In the second sticker, I had a PDA with a secret code required to get into it. I had a wallet full of numbers including the character's boyfriend's birthday. I tried for eons to get various codes to work. The ending solution was a totally random one. In both cases I was very frustrated to have wasted so much time for that solution.

I actually lived in St Louis for a year, and my then-boyfriend worked at Wash U near a building they mention. I was impressed that they did their research well, mentioning streets and areas that exist around there. Unfortunately my ex in real life turned out to be pretty slimy, so during the game I was rooting for him to be caught in the theater when it collapsed :) It was both fun and bizarre to have all sorts of very recognizeable St Louis references come up in the story.

The scenes are very lovely, but they're all static. Unlike most modern day games that let you walk through an area smoothly, in this one you're restricted to moving through a 'picture book' of scenes, where you can only turn to certain angles. This made it frustrating when I wanted to go to a certain door or look a certain way. Often I had to circle around a few times to get pointed in the direction I wanted, or the game prevented me from looking at the object I wanted to see. Some drawers would open, others were magically withheld from you. It took away from the sense that you were really "there".

Still, except for the few nasty puzzles, the majority of the game was very pleasant, and lasted maybe 5-6 hours. If you have a walkthrough guide within reach while you play, you can enjoy the rest of the experience sort of like an 'animated story book', and it's great practice for the more advanced puzzle games that exist out there.