App Army Assemble: Pine Grove - A Sherlock Holmes-esque murder mystery on mobile?

Each week, we get early access to an exciting upcoming mobile game and give it to a select few hardened mobile gaming experts that make up the App Army. We then feed these thoughts back to you, our audience, so you know whether it's worth your time or not. Gamer to gamer.

We start this week by giving the army full access to Pine Grove, a gritty murder mystery game where you take on the role of a detective trying to solve various cases.

You can pick up the game from the App Store.

Kainen Ryan

Well, if you want a game that involves repetition then this is for you. In order to collect clues and keys you are put in the same mini game over and over.

It has a simple, clean art style, but it isn't for me as there is not much detective work to do.

Quincy Jones

It's a pretty weird game, solving murders by viewing the crime through the victims' eyes is a quirky feature. Unfortunately, it's not presented in a fresh, enjoyable way and, instead, we're left in a stale car chase against an unforgiving opponent.

One thing I have noticed is some dialogue is improperly translated, which causes a complete collapse of atmosphere.

However, it's not all bad, the addition of copycat killers is a good attempt to bring something new to the table, but it isn't presented well enough to keep me entertained.

GGod Hand

I went into this with pure excitement, however, after a few attempts, I realised this wasn't the Sherlock type of detective game I was hoping for. Instead, the game has you collect evidence in a car while being repeatedly rammed by the killer until you crash.

The controls don't help either, but the merciless ramming will have you uninstalling this app. It takes you out of any immersion you have had trying to follow the unconvincing story. If you can put up with repetition like this, then I salute you.

Oksana Ryan

In order to collect clues to a murder, you are timed as you drive down a road with keys and boxes to collect. But you are not alone on this drive as the killer constantly rams you making your detective work near impossible.

This wouldn't be so bad if the game had other ways to collect evidence unfortunately that is it. Several car chases all while being rammed does get boring very quick. I love detective games, but this really didn't deliver.

The App Army is Pocket Gamer's very own community of mobile game experts. Each week, we provide them with a bunch of free codes and early access to the hottest upcoming games so they can provide their thoughts in features like this. We also host regular community-driven events with them in mind, like the Mobcrush stream, tournaments, and multiplayer evenings. To join, simply follow this link to the page on Facebook and request access. We'll get you in right away!