In a lot of adventure games, puzzles start out easy and become slowly more difficult the further you move into the game. I have found this to be the case with other Nancy Drew games, but for some reason I did not find it worked this way with SOC. All the puzzles seem to require about the same level of skill. This is not a bad thing, and there is really no huge pull-out-your-hair, scream-at-your-computer puzzle that had me grinding my teeth. The only challenge that made me really feel the heat of frustration was a sewing job that required a good deal of hand-eye coordination. The other area players might have some trouble with is a slightly tricky miniature golf game which takes a bit of practice to get the swing of. Before beginning your golf round, I would recommend that you save, as it costs money to play, and may take several tries to successfully score a par for the course. The rest of the game is filled with three slider puzzles (no kidding, three!), an anagram quizzer, some regular push, pull, or turn types of challenges, and a number of errands that need to be completed to get inventory items. Despite the inclusion of three sliders, I thought the game had a good mix of challenges and riddles that will satisfy most gamers.

While the graphics in the Nancy Drew games have always been solid, there has never been any fear that they would give the Myst games a run for their money in this department. This brings me to the first of two areas where I think Her Interactive would be wise to tweak the upcoming games in this series. While the environments in their games are nicely developed and generally employ camera angles and lighting to good effect, let's be honest… they aren't pushing any boundaries here. One of the areas they could improve in their games with very little energy is the game's character modelling. The people look okay, but they move like marionettes and have less facial expression than a Mr. Potato Head. With the exception of some arm movements, they are pretty static. If the artists could infuse a little more life into their characters, they would be adding another level of realism and quality to their games.

The second place I would like Her Interactive to focus some extra design attention is the use of music in their games. The looped soundtrack in SOC, while having an appropriate Cole Porter-esque sound that was appropriate for 1930, really doesn't add much to overall gameplay. For a series of games like Nancy Drew, that releases one or two games a year, creating a extensive soundtrack a la Myst IV: Revelation is just not practical. So why not just ditch it, or at least extensively scale back its use in the game? Does a repetitive soundtrack add enough value to gameplay to include it throughout? I am not sure that it does, especially when we have seen other games have greater success with just a slate of ambient sounds. This is an aspect the game already does very well. In SOC, I was especially jazzed by the sound of a plane flying overhead when I was in the courtyard of the Lilac Inn. Elsewhere, the sound of a cat purring and meowing was so realistic that it had my two cats going a little crazy looking for the interloper.

The voice work is always good in the Nancy Drew games and SOC is no exception. I don't know how it is that Her Interactive so consistently delivers in this area where the majority of games stumble. As I have played a ton of games whose characters were painful to listen to, this game is like balm to the ears. The tone and delivery of each actor always sounds age-appropriate to the character they are playing, whether it's a teenage girl or a middle-aged bank manager.

And as always, the dialogue is a cut above. Again this is an area that causes so many games to crash and burn, but SOC succeeds. There is a good deal of dialogue and slang used in the game that is meant to be period-specific. You might think this would create confusion for a player not familiar with some of these expressions, but they actually work very well and add a level of authenticity that is most welcome.

At this point, Her Interactive has a successful formula with their Nancy Drew games that almost always results in a captivating game. But should they rest on their laurels? As the twelfth game in their venerable series, they've reached a point where these games could start to stagnate if they don't continue to make improvements. Specifically, they need to take their character design to the next level. They have the voice work and dialogue for their characters down to a science, but now they need to bring the graphic design to that level. The use of sound also needs to be re-thought. I really feel these games could benefit from dropping their reliance on looped soundtracks in favour of an expanded library of ambient sounds. This has been very successful in other games, and I think it could be in this series, as well. However, despite these remaining weaknesses overall, Secret of the Old Clock is still an enjoyable Nancy Drew title that would be a welcome addition to the library of both Senior and Junior detectives.