Nancy Drew has been around on the PC for several years now. This is a good platform for these particular games, as they are traditional point-and-click adventure games that utilize the mouse for most of the gameplay. Recently, a Nancy Drew game was released as a TV DVD game, and it didn’t work as well, mainly because of extremely long load times between every scene. Nancy Drew also has a couple of DS titles under her belt, the first of which is a decent DS game, but the second is rather lame. Now, Nancy has come to the Wii and unfortunately, it is not that good of a match.

Nancy Drew: The White Wolf of Icicle Creek is an adventure game that is set in the Rockies in the United States. This Wii version is a port of the same game, Nancy Drew: The White Wolf of Icicle Creek, previously released on the PC. You can read the review of the PC version here. The basic story revolves around Nancy trying to solve the rash of mysterious accidents and near-disasters at the resort lodge, which seem to have something to do with an elusive white wolf that keeps appearing around the lodge.

Like most Nancy Drew games, White Wolf is an adventure game with traditional inventory collecting and clue gathering, interspersed with lots of puzzles. There are also several mini-games. It has been my experience that most adventure games just don’t translate that well to console systems, mostly because adventure game fans are used to playing with a mouse-driven interface. It feels awkward playing these types of games with a gamepad. However, this is a personal preference and other players may not feel this way.

Using the WiiMote delivers about the same experience as other console game controls. It just doesn’t feel right, except for playing the mini-games, which is more in line with using the console for action-oriented games. Playing these games, such as the racing ice fishing game and the snowball fight game, is pretty fun on the Wii. Unfortunately, though, one of the best mini-games in White Wolf, the kitchen order game, doesn’t play as well because of the twitchy WiiMote controls.  This game is better played with the mouse to click on the needed items speedily, rather than the WiiMote. It makes it difficult to complete the orders fast in order to get a better score.
 

Other than the difference in control methods, the PC and Wii games are virtually identical. Deciding on which game to get depends on the player’s preference.  White Wolf is a good adventure game and is one of the better Nancy Drew games, comparatively in the middle range of quality of these popular mystery games from Her Interactive. The price is the only difference, $20 for the PC version and $30 for the Wii version.

Gameplay: 7
The gameplay on the Wii works adequately, but just isn’t as good a control system as on the PC for these types of adventure games.

Graphics: 8
The game looks good on the Wii and is similar to the PC game of the same name.

Sound: 7
The music theme is the same as in other Nancy Drew games and fits the story line well.

Difficulty: Medium
The puzzles and activities range from a medium difficulty to an easy one. None of them are overly difficult.

Concept: 6
The concept of the adventure is presented in the same format as most other adventure games, and are very similar to all other Nancy Drew games. Porting it to the Wii works adequately, but doesn’t play quite as well as on the PC.

Multiplayer:  N-A
The multiplayer mode seems like an interesting way to play, but it’s not. It just makes it all more difficult.

Overall: 7
Nancy Drew: The White Wolf of Icicle Creek is a slightly above average adventure game for teens and is pretty fun to play. However, this Wii version isn’t quite as good a platform as the PC.  Adventure games play better on the PC.  Unless the player just has to have a Wii version of Nancy Drew, I would recommend getting the PC version, as it is cheaper.