This might be a ‘be careful what you wish for’ type of situation. I’m often heard wondering why developers don’t make more wholly 3D HOGs. While the occasionally game built around polygonal art occasionally turns up, by and large those are still 2D affairs, with art considerably less attractive than their hand-drawn competition.
Okay, now this is a strange one. Players control Brad, a reporter searching for his missing wife Janet, who’s disappeared during a European vacation. His questions lead him to… Castle Frankenstein. Here’s the strange part – that’s where the Rocky Horror references end.
This is, by leagues, the most intricate and deep HOG I’ve ever encountered. Partially that’s due to its remarkable running time – the game’s ‘season’ is broken up into four hour-long ‘episodes’ – although simple running time has little to do with the game’s successes.
I’ve played more than a few bleak hidden object games, but few are as unrelentingly dark as Enigmatis: The Ghosts of Maple Creek. Opening in the aftermath of a storm of biblical proportions, it follows a detective with a suddenly-spotty memory as she attempts to piece together her investigation into a disappearance in the titular town.
Yes, there’s a Pretty in Pink hidden object game. I’m as surprised as you are. Based on the John Hughes film of the same name, Pretty in Pink chronicles the last few weeks of high school for Andie, a girl from the poor part of town, as she starts dating a rich kid, causing upset in both of their social circles.
There’s another mystery for James and his player-controlled sidekick to solve – this time it concerns missing intellectuals at a haunted hotel! The twist? This time the hotel is supposed to be haunted! That’s right, in one of the series’ more audacious premises, a man with the warning-bells name of ‘Abraham Shadowy’ has built a hotel designed to terrify its thrill-seeking guests.
After the strange way Haunted Hotel: Eternity wrapped up, with its Mystery Trackers crossover ending and history-altering bonus episode, I had no idea what to expect from Phoenix. Would it follow the same character from the previous game, as the previous trilogy of games had? Or would it depart from the detective millieu entirely and go off in a new direction?
The year is 1888, and archaeologists have discovered an amazing relic – the actual thread Theseus used to find his way back out of the Labyrinth after slaying the minotaur!
One of my favourite subgenres in HOGS I review are the stealth adaptations. Whether it’s a popular video game franchise like Bioshock or a minor literary classic like The Shadow Over Innsmouth, I enjoy seeing how game developers who profoundly don’t have the rights to a certain piece of media transform it into a hidden object game. How subtle will they be in their use of locations, character designs, entire plots?
I’m not sure this review can be trusted. It’s entirely possible that I love this game far too much for my opinions about its merits to be trusted. What explains this adoration? It revolves entirely around the game’s premise, and its straightforward exploration thereof.
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