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The stakes have never been higher as Nancy Drew joins an international undercover investigation to track down a phantom thief in Venice. The police have few leads and you might be the only one who can stop the thefts of historic artifacts Can you spy on suspects and collect clues before the crime syndicate catches up to you.? Dare to Play

GRAPHICS -4/5
good for the most part. It's pretty difficult to capture the beauty of Italy, so I respect the effort put in.

PUZZLES - 2/5
sparce and the majority of them were insultingly easy. There were two that I thought were really difficult. However, I usually have to use a walkthrough like five times per game, so this was a nice change, I suppose (meaning, they dumbed it down, just for me).

STORYLINE 4/5
Set in Italy which automatically makes it interesting. Short. Characters were interesting enough.

EDUCATION 3/5
One thing I've always enjoyed about Nancy Drew games are their ability to subtley educate (Secret of the Scarlet Hand yay!). This one didn't have as much, but I enjoyed the book on Italian culture/language and the chess board stuff.

HUMOR(spoiler alerts, sort of) 5/5
This game was hilarious to me, more so because I never expected it to be. My list of entertaining things:
First of all, don't waste your money seeing how much gelato Nancy can eat before she vomits. She's a bottomless pit. (and kind of a fatty - a whole box of chocolates and a basket of sausages, really Nancy??)

There are lots of things to spend money on, but don't worry, you can always earn some cash by dancing in a leather cat suit at the local club. I'm not kidding. You even have a stage name. Plus the guy who auditions you sounds like he's been smokin a few joints in the back.

You can click on the bathroom in Nancy's room and she makes bad jokes, none of which made sense to me...o_O

While I appreciated to have the option of being bitch-Nancy, it's just an illusion of choice, as it doesn't affect the storyline at all. For instance, when asked if you like your room, you can either say "Yes, it's wonderful" or "No, it's a bit quaint."

And of course a good Nancy Drew game isn't complete without a British guy who has the hots for you. =]

I have played about half the games in the Nancy Drew game series and have absolutely loved them all. But I must say, I have a couple favorites and Venice is probably my number one.

Set in Venice, Italy in the midst of "carnevale," an Italian celebration, the graphics are fantastic. The production crew obviously knew what they were doing when they created this game. You can hear people having conversations in the background and the architecture of the buildings is so realistic that you feel as if you are truly in Venice. I would rate the setting and graphics 5 stars.

And, the plot. Ah. It was clear unlike some other Nancy Drew games, you basically went to Venice for a rich socialite named Prudence Rutherford because she wanted you to help the Italian police and the GdiF (Italian FBI) track down the "Phantom" thief, a person who ran around stealing all of Venice's most precious artifacts without leaving any traces behind. Clear, strong plot that I would rate 5 stars.

There are several characters in this game, though a couple of them you don't actually meet face-to-face. Colin Baxter is from Oxford, England, and is way too enthusiastic about his work. He is an art restorer and bores you by making you watch his tessarae slides and later in the game you have to put a mosaic together. He is boring but can be quite amusing sometimes.
Helena Berg is a journalist currently living in Hamburg because that is where the offices of the magazine she writes for are. Her accent can be hysterical and she is a good addition to the game.
Margherita Fauburg is the owner of the Ca Nascosta, the place where Nancy is staying on her trip. She is very wealthy and misuses her money on dumb things. She spends all of her day on the altana, or the rooftop garden, sunbathing because she believes a good tan is important. She is very slightly irritating, but you get used to her boastful personality as you progress through the game.
Enrico Tazza is the owner of the private club, Casa de Giochi, or House of Games. He spends most of his time there trying to convince people to play Scopa, a traditional Italian card game, with him, and making Nancy perform tasks for him, but they chores he assigns you are kind of fun. Tazza is a solid character who the crew at HerInteractive evidently thought very carefully about.
Antonio Fango is a suspect in the thefts attributed to the "Phantom" and Nancy never speaks with him, but does spy on him from the altana and breaks into his office in Campo de Frari. Nice part of this game, but it is a little sad you never talk to him.
There are a few other characters you don't meet face to face, but I described the most important characters in the game. I would rate the characters and their various personalities 4.5 stars since you don't get to talk to Fango, Margherita is a little annoying sometimes, and Colin is about as interesting as a brick wall.

The puzzles were fun. One was a little annoying because you had to put a mosaic together for Colin while he searched for a replacement bulb for his microscope. They aren't too easy, but you don't spend hours staring at the screen trying to figure them out. They are very well explained and interesting, so I would rate them 4.8 stars because of the one mosaic puzzle that I found extremely boring.

There are various places you can go throughout the game, and you can go to them by simply clicking your way to them on a map. You can walk, go by vaporetto, or gondola, and you can optionally listen to a singing gondalier. The way of getting places and the number of different places you could go were amazing, so I'd give it 5 stars.

This game was very, very FUN!! If you got bored and didn't feel like working on the case, you could escape the pressure by dancing and selling flowers to the Rialto Market. If you earned a bunch of Euros, the Italian money, you could spent it by eating gelato or buying clothes from the costume store.

The ending was very confusing at first, but I looked up a cheat online and it helped me solve the puzzle(s!) at the end. It was relevant to the game and not off the hook like some endings on other games. I'd rate the ending 4.5 stars since I was confused, even on Junior level.

Overall, this is a perfect installment for the series. I hope all the Nancy Drew fanatics out there buy it, and if you've never played a ND game before, I reccomend this for your first one. You won't regret it. Ciao!

I bought this game along with another ND: Last Train.. for my 12-yr-old twin nieces, and their mother tells me that when they aren't playing the games, they are talking about them, constantly, between themselves and with their friends. I rated it 4 stars because some adult help was needed in a couple of places.

I have played most of the Nancy Drew games, and this one is by far the best. I love how Her Interactive portrays Venice, and I love all of the artwork in it. Also, the mystery is really deep and intruiging. Up until I played this game, Nancy Drew #4 (Treasure in a Royal Tower) was my favorite, but this one sweeps it away.

In The Phantom of Venice, you are Nancy Drew, ready to solve a mystery once again (although this one is much better than the others). This time, a masked villain is stealing many valuable art pieces in and around Venice. It's up to you to crack the case of this mystery! Can you make your way through the streets of Venice and catch a much-wanted thief?!

As this series has progressed we've seen it improve in graphics, voice acting, and more. We've seen it add cell phones, notepads, and more. But in this game HERinteractive threw something at us that I think very few people (if any) saw coming. The ability to change clothes.

Story-Prudence Rutherford (from Secret of the Scarlet Hand and Danger By Design) has pulled some strings in Italy to get the police over there to invite you over to help them catch a thief. A phantom has been stealing things from some high-class people, and the police have few leads. The thing about this story is that instead of it really being a mystery, you are going to Italy to spy on someone. So it's less of a mystery and more of a government spy thing.

Graphics-They were REALLY good, and I thought that the people in the game were really well made. The backgrounds were fabulous as well. Really, really good!

Sound-The voice acting was really good. The music was Italian and interesting. It was really great.

Gameplay-Like I said in my intro, you change clothes in this game, and it was a huge change. Don't worry, you don't see Nancy in her underwear or something, all you see is an outline of a person, and you can wear shirts, pants, skirts, gloves, glasses, shoes, hats, and more. I found this made the game a little doll like, and I'm not sure that I liked that. Also the puzzles mostly have to do with spying techniques, and it really wasn't mystery like. This is why I took off a star.

Fun-It was still really fun, though, and I couldn't take off any fun stars. I just wish they had made the puzzles more mysterious and interesting.

Length-The length isn't too bad. It's about 9-10 hours straight through, but it has a couple of side quests that take about 5-10 minutes each, so if you want to try to figure those out it will take you a little bit longer.

All in all this is a REALLY GOOD game. I definitely recommend you get it, especially if you prefer spying to detective work. It is really short, but it is a fun game that you will probably play again and again!