Some days just seem to go wrong from the start and with ours it was the appearance of a giant nuclear Zeppelin appearing on our Nokia 5730 XpressMusic? After all, it can only mean one thing - Heaven City is under attack from some Mad Scientist and only one man can stop it. That's right, Dirk Dagger is back on N-Gage to help Heaven City overcome its problems. Check out how we got on with our N-Gage: Dirk Dagger and the Nuclear Zeppelin review...

Blonde Dames, Blazing guns and Mad scientists seem to be the norm for most Film Noir adventures and N-Gage: Dirk Dagger and the Nuclear Zeppelin is no exception. The second installment for our hapless gumshoe seems an improved interface, better graphics and as we found the Nokia 5730 XpressMusic, even better sound quality.

Like the first Dirk Dagger game, Dirk Dagger and the Fallen Idol, this is an old-fashioned adventure game where you go around picking up and solving clues, each one seemingly random but working to the overall aim of, in this case, defeating the mad scientist.

Check out our review of Dirk Dagger and the Fallen Idol

This game is part of an almost extinct breed of adventure games but it suits the game style perfectly. What’s more, the cut-scenes and scripting have a deft touch to them that help set the tone perfectly. You can play as Dirk or as his housefly-reincarnated partner, ‘Harry’, and work your way through a series of puzzles and mini-games as you decipher the plot and get to the final shoot-out with the murderer. The graphics have a far slicker look to them this time around, with the colours looking bolder and while this isn’t a 3D game, it does look rather good. Sound quality too has been improved and really adds to the overall feel of the game, helping to set the mood.

You can navigate Dirk around the screen using the D-pad, scrolling to the left and right. You’ll come across items and people you can interact with, causing an icon, such as a hand, speech balloon, or feet, to appear. A novel new twist is that instead of just using the D-pad you can now move around using the Nokia’s built-in camera. This is a bit trickier than it sounds, as you still need to use the D-pad to activate icons and the like and we found the scrolling was faster than we expected.

This mode comes into its own when playing through the mini-games and tests that are littered throughout the game. Once you’ve unlocked a mini-game you can return to it at any time and try and improve your score on the N-Gage rating.

Dirk Dagger and the Nuclear Zeppelin isn’t the most frenetic of games and we did feel that things could move a little faster. However, if you like solving puzzles and generally playing games, then there is some real value in being Dirk.

Details

Price: £6

Size: 30MB

DOWNLOAD: N-Gage: Dirk Dagger and the Nuclear Zeppelin

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