If you’ve ever wonder what it would be like to solve crimes and pick apart crime scenes for clues, then Interpol: The Trail of Dr. Chaos may be right up your alley. You’re objective is to find and bring the ever-elusive Dr. Chaos to justice as you travel worldwide uncovering the clues he’s unexpectedly leaving behind along with his criminal associates.

There are 11 cities to visit, each with at least three different locations with odd objects (such as a cat or a whale) to find scattered across the entire screen. Starting in San Francisco and ending in Cairo, you’ll visit notorious places such as Moscow, London, Paris, Tokyo and Rome upon your hunt for Dr. Chaos. There’ll be little pieces of flair added into each location to make it resemble its city such as the Golden Gate Bridge being placed in the background of one of the crime scenes where you perform your detective work.

Each mission is a little different in terms of story such as the first mission that requires you hunt down a Dr. Chaos associate named Mr. Smith. While the criminal names aren’t the most original, the storyline at least is worthy of following if you happen to enjoy reading. That’s right, the story is text heavy and before every city, you’ll be filled in on your objectives and what you are to accomplish throughout the visit to the city. But if you aren’t bothered by a few paragraphs of text, then you should be able to enjoy Interpol for what it truly is – an entertaining 15-minute distraction from your action-packed retail Xbox 360 games. 

The gameplay is quite simple: find the objectives hidden within the screen and move onto the next location to accomplish the same tasks. There are usually eight different items – some with a higher number count – which you’ll have to search for within the time limit provided. The developers have granted gamers a chance to use a certain amount of hints per location if they get stuck for those hard to find items. If that isn’t enough, they also have given gamers the ability to zoom in with a magnifying glass to get a closer look at the environment since it’s often hard to focus due to how many items are distributed throughout the pictures.  Also, beware of clicking all over the screen in attempt to randomly find an object due to that the developers have inflicted a penalty on the time remaining if you decide to go hog-wild.

As for the graphics, the environments that the developers have created are pretty to stare at for a few minutes but then you’ll begin to notice how poor the resolution is. After staring at the scenes they’ve created, it’s inevitable that your eyes will become watery due to that you have to focus to find what you’re looking for. But outside of the colorful paintings that you’ll be hunting objects within, the game isn’t very animated outside of a few passing objects that are in the background such as jets or clouds in the air. With static images and not much of a graphical presentation of menus, Interpol won’t blow your mind graphically – but then again, it was never meant to either.

There’s also cooperative multiplayer presented for both offline and online gaming. If you can find a friend who is into puzzle games such as this hidden object game, then there’s a real chance that you’ll have fun with your friend for a short time. But be prepared for the thrills to only last under 30 minutes because Interpol is a game that is better experienced in short doses rather than long sessions.

If you’re looking for the next great game to play with a family member, Interpol: The Trail of Dr. Chaos is an unique game on the Xbox 360 with a few distinct traits that makes it stick out from the puzzle genre. The only problem is that it’s a fairly repetitive game that reaches its distance only after a few cities of detective work. Download the trial before buying since this is a niche game that only a few select puzzle aficionados will adore.

Gameplay: 6.2
The first few cities you visit provide intriguing prospects. But once you realize that you’ve seen everything, Interpol becomes a monotonous puzzler.

Graphics: 5.9
While the environments you must stare at are cluttered with colorful items, the resolution is poor making Interpol very hard on the eyes. 

Sound: 5.5
Typical sound effects accompany a rather boring music selection – yawn!

Difficulty: Easy

Concept: 7.5
Having seen little of this genre in recent years, it’s great to see a developer try to reinvigorate it with an Xbox Live Arcade release.

Multiplayer: 5.9
Having a friend play alongside you is only fun for about 30 minutes.

Overall: 6.1
There are times where you’ll appreciate the throwback to old detective games, but then you’ll realize that Interpol: The Trail of Dr. Chaos needed a lot more work graphically to keep your attention past the first few cities.