Hotel Dusk offers a chilling story with Murder, Lies, Betrayal and a room that grants wishes.
The main story is set at a place called Hotel Dusk, a small, somewhat rundown hotel located in the southwestern United States near Los Angeles, California during the year 1979. The protagonist is Kyle Hyde, a former member of the New York Police Department searching for his old partner, Brian Bradley. During his stay at the hotel, Kyle unravels a mystery shrouded in the hotel's past that may lead him to the answers he's looking for.
Gameplay: You'll be holding your DS sideways like a book at all times, using the D pad or the face buttons (depending on your dexterity) to advance the cutscenes and using the touch screen to move around dragging the stylus ahead of where you want to go, and happen upon an item or person you want to talk/examine, simply you tap an icon on the bottom corner of the screen to make it happen.
There's not really much gameplay unlike other games which have a lot of jumping, hacking and slashing. Hotel Dusk however is puzzle-solving game. There are one or two things you'll notice is that you'll be closing and opening your DS to flip an item from one side of the screen to the other to reveal a message on the back. When your answering questions to people your going to be speaking too make sure you say the right questions to them because you will encounter a game over if your not to careful if your either interviewing on questions or asking them something.
Graphics and Sound: While you are holding your DS sideways like a book, Hotel Dusk does a nice job on graphics and on charcters too. The Environments in Hotel Dusk some places you'll be looking using the touch screen and using the slider to look around to adjust your view of a room or area. If you keep looking around you'll find most puzzles either speaking to people in the Hotel or searching or looking for an item in a room.
The charcters animations do remind you of that music video "Take on Me by Aha" which a song was back in the 80's or was it the 90's? Well anyways they both look a little similar account of the black and white colours on the charcters everything else is all in colour. You can also use the touch screen to write anything down or any information you want to put down, there are a few hidden surprises in Hotel Dusk so you might want keep your eyes open if you see anything around. Music for the game has done a nice job making it feel late 70's-80's type music making you get stuck into the game.
Overall: It's hard to say that Hotel Dusk is more of a Novel more then to a game, if you love reading books like Harry Potter or The Hobbit or a really good book you'll like Hotel Dusk if you're a Book Worm.
This game will probably not appeal to everyone out there but playing Hotel Dusk is an enjoyable DS game with many plots and twist's. It can take you a good couple hours getting through the story but don't rush through the game all at once. If you are sitting on a 9 hour flight somewhere or sitting in the back seat of your parent's car, why not open up your DS and play Hotel Dusk you'll actually enjoy it even tough it's not a really hard game to get into.