If you like the famous thriller author James Patterson, you are sure to be interested in James Patterson’s: Catch a Killer, the puzzle-adventure casual game on Facebook from Sony Online Entertainment. I love this genre with the essential elements including storytelling, exploration, and puzzle solving, like Big Fish’s Mystery Case Files series.
Actually, the puzzle-adventure games are much more successful in the download space for gameplay experience of a single player. Now Sony Online Entertainment has added new social features to Catch a Killer which relies to some extent on female audience, detective novels fans and puzzle game players.
Based on Patterson’s crime drama, you assume the role of an agent to assist the famous character Alex Cross to solve a series of murder and kidnapping cases. The realistic graphics make the game more intense with a strong sense of blood and suspense to your feelings. Following the plots driven by James Patterson, Catch a Killer will take you on an unforgettable detective journey, showing off your ability of solving the cases.
In Catch a Killer, you are tasked with finding the evidence with four steps: investigations, examines, forensics, and results. Each step is tackled in the form of mini-games. When completed, more clues about the case will be revealed to investigate the details.
In the beginning, you choose to investigate the crime screen from the case board. The hidden object game requires you to use your keen eyes to find the listed objects on the screen, especially the hidden clues for the crime cases. Like other puzzle-adventure titles, you can click the hint bottom when getting stuck. If you click too many irrelevant items, your mouse will be frozen for a while. After you find the special clue, bring it to the crime lab for a further analysis.
There are two types of examine tools in the lab, detection and collection. The detection tools are used to help you discover the clues. The duster tool, for example, uncovers fingerprints, magnifying glass finds debris or zooms in image, and UV lamp tracks fluids. The collection tools are used to identify the evidence, including cotton swabs, lifting tape, tweezers and camera.
The mini-games for experiments are really simple. By matching the print fragments, you complete the missing fingerprints pieces. By matching the DNA segments in the sample pool, you analyze the correct DNA sequence of colors. As a matter of fact, the puzzle games consist of a fixed component of detective structure in most crime drama shows, and now in Catch a Killer.
The last step is to interrogate the suspect or the witness in an interview in order to gather information. It is worthwhile to note that sometimes you are able to solve the cases and bring criminals to justice, but sometimes the cases will end without finality. And of course, you need to spend energy to complete all the steps. As you level up, your energy will be refilled and more cases will be unlocked.
Unlike other Facebook games, it seems the only interaction in Catch a Killer is to request the energy pack from friends instead of purchasing with real money or send virtual gifts to decorate the in-game house. On the contrary, Catch a Killer pays more attention on the virtual city where you are able to customize your avatar, buy decorative items, and communicate with others in the real-time channel.
Anyway, Catch a Killer is a great puzzle-adventure game on Facebook in an interactive story with the suspense and puzzle-solving features.
