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Cate West TVF was first released as a PC download game and , like a lot of casual titles (especially hidden object games at the moment) has been ported to the DS and Wii. For this report I have conducted my review based on the DS version.
You play the role of Cate, a mystery writer with psychic abilities, who has been called to assist the Arcadia police when a series of cryptic crimes hit the city. However connections to Cate’s father’s murder soon appear stringing Cate along determined to discover her father’s fate through a series of puzzles.

The story mode is the main quest and it settles into a rather predictable routine right from the start. Each of the 15 crime cases, or chapters, are broken into 5 parts giving a total of 75 playing scenarios. The first part occurs when hearing of a crime, Cate heads off to search some locations for evidence. The number of locations will gradually increase as you progress through the chapters. In each location you will have to find 10 objects and you have at your disposal throughout the game a magnifying glass to zoom in on the screen and an unlimited hint system (requiring a short recharge period) – each of which I found to be a necessity. The object search scenes results in some pieces of evidence which Cate uses her psychic powers to determine strong associations to the criminal.
In the second part of the chapter you have to find broken bits of the evidence objects to piece them back together. This is still effectively searching a scene for objects although this time instead of a text list of items to find, you are given images of the broken items to locate. Eg. If the evidence was a camera you may have to find 3 x lens, 3 x broken bits of the camera body etc.
In the next phase Cate must find the criminals hideout by solving a spot the difference puzzle and matching a photograph with one of Cate’s visions. Helpful Hint :   In this section I found that by looking at the bigger picture rather than zooming in straightaway I was able to spot most of the differences and then zoom in for the others.
The fourth part was arresting the suspect from clues Cate is able to glean from the objects of evidence using her psychic powers. A line-up of eight suspects and their personal profiles are available and by using your powers of deductive reasoning decide who to arrest. The information however is rather ambiguous and can usually apply to most of the suspects – I very rarely picked the correct suspect on my first attempt J
For the fifth puzzle you play the role of an Arcadian police detective trying to determine his own recollection of the crime scene. This time the find the difference puzzle is turned upside down .Whereby you have to compare pictures and place objects on screen so that the pictures are identical.
Cate West TVF works on a scoring system depending on the number of hints used and time taken to complete. There is a random tap penalty where time is deducted for tapping on the wrong objects. Helpful Hint: use the control pad for moving around the screen incase your stylus inadvertently touches it. When you complete phases in story mode more playable scenarios are available in quick mode in the main menu.
The story is nicely presented between puzzles on the top screen. The Vanishing Files unfolds as conversations between the characters. Christianity and religion in general are always a good resource and with each of the defendants giving a new clue on their arrest, it does make you want to pursue the case to find the link that ties the stiry together.
On its release the downloadable PC version performed very well however, there has been little if any adaptation for DS play. I found the puzzle screens to be grainy and objects were extremely hard to find either because of their size or quality of the picture. However we should remember at this stage that the DS and Wii are relatively new platforms for these genres and I would hope that the developers learn from other hidden object games that have been ported and possibly use 360 degree viewer or a series of panels to make up the screen. Both of which would greatly enlarge the environments. I also found the game to be a bit too formulaic and found myself hoping for more of a variety to the types of puzzles used.

Marks out of 10
Graphics 6.5 – Top screen graphics are lovely it would’ve been good if the bottom screen were of the same standard
Gameplay 7 – was a bit too repetitive and formulaic.
Longevity 7.5 – the game is of a good length and with the point system gamers can revisit to improve scores

Top star goes to storyline but still would’ve liked more character development

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