At Home with John and Debbie

Another Code: Two Memories — known in other countries as “Trace Memory” is another Nintendo DS game, which Paul bought and I borrowed.

The first thing you must know about Another Code is that it is very short. Paul, Gary and I each finished it in under 7 hours.

The second thing you must know is that it doesn’t matter. I happen to think it’s the better for being short. The game is a point-and-click adventure — or since you’re using the DS stylus, a “prod adventure” I suppose — which uses the various foibles of the DS in interesting ways. There are times when you have to blow into the mic,  frantically rub the screen, and, um, other things that could be construed as spoilers if I told you.

You play as a 14 year old girl, Ashley, who starts the game on a boat on her way to visit her Dad, who she has been led to believe was dead for most of her life. On the island, you lead Ashley around by prodding at the bottom screen, which holds a 3D top-down view of her environment. Meanwhile, the top screen displays as 2D view of her immediate surroundings. At any point you can bring the 2D view onto the proddable bottom screen to look at objects, pick them up, and so on.

While there are puzzles, none of them are all that difficult. Where I got stuck, it was simply because I’d not looked at things thoroughly enough.

Above all, I see it as a cute way of telling a story. The story is interesting, and quite grown up for a kids’ game.

Worth playing, but with the lack of longevity, possibly a good rental candidate.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 25th, 2006 at 14:31 and is filed under Video games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.