After receiving a letter with a strange request from his missing uncle, Mortimer Beckett journeys to the haunted Beckett family mansion. His uncle asks him to search for pieces of a Ghost Machine hidden in the mansion. Now Mortimer is on a spooky scavenger hunt to find this mysterious machine, rid the mansion of ghosts, and rescue his uncle.
Mortimer Beckett and the Secrets of Spooky Manor is a search and find scavenger hunt game for the Nintendo Wii. Each stage is a still picture of a scene in the spooky house, and you must use the Wii remote to point at the screen and click to find hidden objects. Many of the required objects to find are in pieces, and you must find each segment hidden in the room. After you find and assemble a complete item, you must place it back in the picture where it belongs. Some of the objects you find can help you solve puzzles to reveal more of the picture. For instance, find pieces of a key and then you can open a chest in the picture.
Don't just click around the screen haphazardly, though. If you do, ghosts will appear and block the pictures, making it harder for you to see. Some ghosts will even attach to your Wii remote cursor, and you must wiggle the remote to shake them off.
The graphics are pretty awful. Normally, bad visuals don't bother me in a game, but the grainy graphics make it difficult to spot some of the hidden items. And the still comic book scenes that tell the story feel uninspired. Mortimer Beckett can be played with up to four players, each one pointing a remote at the screen to find items. So if you have a group of kids who like I Spy books or the Hidden Pictures in Highlights Magazine, they may enjoy this game. But that's about it.
A kid-focused "seek and find" style game that has players exploring a spooky manor house to find pieces of hidden objects by pointing and clicking with the Wii remote.
Obviously, Mortimer Beckett and the Secrets of Spooky Manor is not for everyone. It is about as casual of a game as you could ever find. It would fit in quite nicely in the upcoming Family/Casual based column, for sure. The game is short, and has little if any replay value, though it is priced as a value title. If you desire a hardcore, difficult gaming experience, look elsewhere. But, if you want a decent, clean game to play with young kids or non-traditional gamers, Mortimer Beckett just might be your man.
It really isn't appropriate to prop up Mortimer Beckett and the Secrets of the Spooky Manor next to games like Super Smash Bros. Brawl or Call of Duty: World at War and compare, because they don't offer the same kind of experience. Compared to high-profile Wii point and click titles like, say, Zack and Wiki, though, Mortimer Beckett holds its own. Since it would be considered a "casual" game in the first place, it doesn't offer a high-end graphics experience and isn't heavy on the presentation, but with multiplayer support and a second quest, Mortimer Beckett and the Secrets of the Spooky Manor is a graphic adventure with a lot to offer.
