The Vanishing Files basically sees you play as Cate West, a psychic novelist who has been drafted in to help the police with a series of crimes that they have been unable to solve. The game is split into five different parts in which you find clues, find evidence, confirm where the criminal is hiding, identify the criminal and then match the crime scene to take the criminal down.

 

Finding clues sees you searching a crime scene for the clues which are listed on the top screen, these are always a variety of items, for example keys, flowers, an axe etc.. When you reach the crime scene you are shown a picture which is full of items, obviously making it difficult to pick out the items you are looking for. In order to help you find the items Cate has a magnifying glass which zooms in on a particular area, therefore making things slightly easier to spot. Once you have found all of the clues you will then move on to finding the evidence.

 

Each piece of evidence is scattered around the scene, so to find the evidence you will need to use the skills you learned when finding clues, since both are quite similar in nature. As an example in the first chapter of the game you will need to find the pieces of a camera and some parts of a shoe, once you find all of these you are then required to confirm where the criminal’s hideout is.

 

Finding the criminals hideout is simply a case of spotting the difference between two pictures, it’s simple enough but also quite frustrating, especially when you get down to the last one and can’t find it. Once you have found the hideout you will then identify the criminal using the evidence you have gathered so far. Basically eight faces will appear on screen then using the information at your disposal you then need to figure out who the suspect is in as less attempts as possible.

 

Finally once you have completed the four steps of finding clues, evidence, the hideout and the suspect you will then go to court and basically recreated the crime scene by placing all the evidence back where you found it, then if successful the criminal will be locked up and you can move onto the next crime.

 

What I should mention is that to help you in any of these steps you are able to use hints, the hint button is available in any of the sections, though once used it will be disabled for a short period of time. Using the hint button will basically tell you the answer, though you get more points if you avoid using it at all. So why can’t you just tap randomly on the screen until you find the answer? Well the game times you in each section, so tapping randomly will only reward you with a time penalty, which in turn gives you an even shorter amount of time to solve the puzzles.

 

To be honest I have found Cate West a very addictive experience. This title is very hard to put down on and seems a perfect fit for anyone looking to pass the time on a long journey. Cate West is a well presented and fun handheld experience and one that I personally would highly recommend.