Developed by Cing, the creators of Trace Memory, also for the DS, Hotel Dusk puts you in the role of Kyle Hyde. Kyle is a door-to-door salesman in the late 70’s, but he’s also a former cop with a tortured past. Seems his old partner decided to join the criminals rather then just catch them and when Hyde found out, he shot him dead…or so he thought. After getting kicked off the force, Hyde gets the feeling that his partner Bradley is still alive. His investigation leads him to Hotel Dusk, where he meets a group of characters who all seem to have their own secrets and are all strangely connected to each other.

The game is basically a classic point-and-click adventure using the stylus to move around and interact with objects in the environment. Combining both 2D and 3D elements, as well as an art style straight out of aha’s “Take on Me” video, [http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?vid=7846] Hotel Dusk sets the mood for this noir tale quite nicely.

As I said, the game is very film noir. While Hyde is no longer a police officer, he definitely still has that grizzly cop attitude. This works very well, since Hyde will often talk to himself, another staple of film noir, and this actually gives you clues on what to do next.

Sadly, Kyle Hyde is rather stupid. All too often a scene will play out, and the next scene he seems to have completely forgotten about it and is surprised when another character will relay the information you both witnessed. This is rather aggravating, especially since your goal is to solve the mysteries about the hotel and its guests, as well as track down your old partner, and he really seems like an idiot who should be paying more attention to events then he obviously is.

Despite how dim Hyde is, he does provide you with lots of clues and hints of what to do next. This helps the game flow rather nicely and I found that I rarely ever got “stuck”. Unfortunately, there are wrong decisions that can end your game, forcing you to back-track to your last save game. Thankfully, you can save at any time you like, but I found this constant stress of saying or doing the wrong thing meant that I was worrying more about saving my game every other minute then in cracking the case.

Despite the annoying quirks, this is a really good game. I found that I simply could not put it down and I was often eager to find out just how the next “coincidence” would interact with the other plot lines and why everyone and everything seemed to be connected. The cast of unique characters and events, from a ring of art thieves with mob ties to a young girl whose mother left her father, adds great flavor to a story that I can only describe as a real “page turner”. This is definitely one of the most engrossing handheld games to come out and a must-have for adventure game fans like me.