World of Reviews: Games, Movies, And More!!

By Overture Films, published by BigFish Games, 2009

As an investigator in the NYPD, hunt down a copycat killer and try to stop a rash of murders across New York City! Work through multiple murder scenes, collecting evidence and clues, and examine the items in exciting forensic based mini-games. Put all the clues together to determine who the new Poet Killer is before another victim is found, and decide who to trust as the suspects begin to include those inside the police force.

- Big Fish Games

Story: Drugs. Illegal weapons. And a righteous murderer with a poetic inclinations out to make everyone pay. Detective Erica Dean doesn’t need any more to confuse her as she tries to make sense of the series of brutal killings that plague New York City.

A more dangerous and sophisticated plot than the first Righteous Kill that starts brightly but drops pace into the first few chapters and reduces to the same idiocy that was the main fault of the original Righteous Kill game. How long can you watch unworthy incompetent detectives who constantly miss clues about 10 times in each location and get dragged on a noose by the murderer?

Righteous Kill 2: Revenge of the Poet killer also suffers from the shadowy ghosts of the first story. In fact, the general premise is exactly the same – plenty of evidences planted overwhelmingly against one person (note: it is never explained how such farfetched evidence could actually be planted), then the detective starts going after an inconsequential object (in this case, a cheap pen) and then the tides turn in the direction of a completely different person. Only thankfully, this time the antagonist isn’t an obvious suspect.

Clearly, the plot could’ve been way better narrated and included the involvement of the detectives in some way. Otherwise, the story is almost all about one man’s thirst for vengeance – and the official force’s total ineptitude in stopping him.

Gameplay: Finally, Righteous Kill 2 brings some detective feel with it. Now besides finding the same items in a considerably larger variety of locations, you also have to interact with certain elements of the locations to further unlock new objects.

Innovations have been added here and there. Like in find the difference puzzles, you’re not given the traditional nearly identical versions of the same picture – instead, you’re given 4 pictures of the same point taken from different angles. The old fingerprint finding puzzle from Righteous Kill 1 is given a new polish – you’re given powders of different colours for different objects. The game’s definitely spiced up! The internet hacker trapping game has been extended into three levels; however, the light background turns out to be a distraction for this minigame.

The new minigames that have been added strongly resemble those in CSI: New York or Women’s Murder Club. One is “reconstructing the face”, done in a very callous way compared to CSI: NY – it isn’t even a minigame at all in the end. The others include the alchemy-like forensic lab testing games found in Women’s Murder Club: Death in Scarlet. They’re interesting, and unlike WMC: DIS, kept short and only whenever necessary (which is rare, given that you’ve no detecting to do).

As for the actual playing part, you are given a GPS enabled cell phone by Sergeant Vasquez. You flit around New York from one location to another using this. The number of locations, I presume, is slightly greater than before, but they’re still repeated shamelessly.

For those that have trouble finding the items, the new unofficial hint system has been added – you can click on an object in the Hidden Object list to see its silhouette.

Graphics and Music: Righteous Kill 2 doesn’t have as clear and bold graphics as Righteous Kill 1; the hidden objects are also more devious to find. The makeshift animation and the deceit in the name of providing original clips from the movie – which incidentally include only cars driving by – just as in Righteous Kill 1, are enough to drive one mad.

The music is thankfully fine, perfectly accentuating the atmosphere of thrill and suspense in the game.

Bottomline: The plot is better presented and although thoroughly confusing and at times, meaningless, it has some dregs of believability. Neither is it as shallow or predictable as before. The poems are well placed enough to be impressive. Now if only the animation didn’t want to make you boil your head in soda water, the game would’ve been mighty fine. But as it is, a story of a cocky yet “the best” detective making mistake after mistake, this is just an average or slightly above average game.

But a better game than the first one. If you like Detective games and engrossing hidden object games that require your undivided attention for a few hours, play this one.

Rating: out of 5

By Overture Films, published by BigFish Games

Step into the shoes of Erica Dean as she investigates crime scenes in New York City. It`s a man hunt for a vigilante on a killing spree through 16 locations containing over a thousand hidden objects. With the help of Sergeant Vasquez, Erica will use clues she collects in a number of detective-themed mini games. Inspired by the motion picture film, Righteous Kill features clips from the movie and 15 animated levels.

-          Big Fish Games

Story: A vigilante is out on loose – taking his revenge on all the perpetrators of crime against women who can never be brought to book. He leaves behind enough evidence, but is hard to catch as a slippery eel. Things take a turn when it is found that the prime suspect himself was convicted for domestic assault. Detective Erica Dean must sort out why such a man would want to turn vigilante – or if indeed, he is the wanted man.

A short comment on the story. I’ve never seen the movie, so forgive any unsolicited comments – but the story in the game is unmitigated rubbish. About 30 times in the game I had to stop and think – how could the game be so dim? With a farfetched plot of planted evidences, and an unworthy cocksure detective in miniskirt who misses all the main clues everywhere, Righteous Kill has one of the worst presented stories in recent times. Mind, worst presented; the story had better capabilities, as exploited in Righteous Kill 2.

Gameplay: The hidden object games in Righteous Kill are pretty interesting and easy – at least you don’t have to search every single pixel. The graphics go a long way to help – clean and colourful. Pity there are only about 15 or 16 such locations that are played over and over again.

The rest of the puzzles include exactly three – fingerprint finding (using a duster), catch the signal (the game of trapping the player in alternating chances within the board) and find the differences. That’s all, and that’s what is repeated again and again through 15 or so chapters.

Graphics and Music: The Graphics, as I said, are clean and not very cluttered. The game includes some clips from the movie – a total of 10 seconds, actually. The rest is some sort of horrible animation with still pictures of the characters bobbing around a still background. A proper animation sequence would’ve done much to spruce up the game.

Parts of it are cool, I must agree. Like the part where 10 bullet shots pierce the screen when the game is Loading.

The music suffices, suffice to say. But in the end, there is no detective atmosphere in the game.

Bottomline: If you try to play the whole game, you’ll soon feel bored. There are the same 16 locations, same objects in each location when you click, and most of the locations don’t have any connection to the murders. The storyline, as you’ll see, is absurdly predictable, and repetitive. It could’ve been wrapped up in half the length.

All in all, Righteous Kill is a moderately enjoyable sort of game, the enjoyment coming in most cases from the easy hidden object part. In vain I searched for a single spark in the entire thing. Recommended only for the fans of the movie, otherwise skip this game.

Rating:

Directed and Written by: Anurag Kashyap, 2009

The euphoria over Anurag Kashyap is rising, even though he has shut himself off from the world in his Mumbai home. And not just for any reason. The man who made groundbreaking movies like No Smoking and Dev D is back again with his former project shelved in 2003 – Gulaal.

Gulaal is ever so slightly different from Kashyap’s genre in Bollywood. It is, in its basics, a scaled down version of a piece of the intense politics in India – seen through the eyes of the “budding” new generation. An incredibly and beautifully complicated story where multiple threads entwine themselves in the lust for power – this movie has it all for successful portrayal of Indian politics – the futility, the irony and the passion, all are present.

The movie begins with the uninitiated puzzlement in Dilip Kumar Singh’s eyes as he enters his rented room in the deserts of Rajpur, a fictional town of Rajasthan. The 28-year old postgraduate is there to study law. Little does he know that there can be no law in the city. Small and insignificant it may be, yet even Rajpur is not free from the flutters and storms of politics. In search of love and a career, Dilip Singh enters far too deep into the growing revolution for a new nation-state of Rajputana to ever come out alive.

Gulaal moves very fast – the scenes almost jump on top of each other, encompassing the details of months in 2 and half hours. And all throughout the film, the fear unleashed by the local political leaders is as well portrayed as could ever be – courtesy Piyush Mishra’s music.

The highlights of the film are the characters and the dialogues. The latter are very well thought out – while on the one hand, they are colloquial, they are also effectively poetic and strike deep.

Kashyap’s characters are the best part of the movie, the one major thing that separates him from most of the contemporary directors – he has made this entire film only based on the character interactions. And it is the characters that make this film so turbulently captivating that it is bound to draw you back again and again to this movie. All the characters have their role to play and are very real and – equal. Even the women in traditionally downtrodden roles – the raped/ ragged young teacher, the cheated wife, and the mistress – everyone somehow retains their human dignities. Duki Bana’s wife gets barely a total of one or two minutes of screen space – yet her last dialogue with Bana make her an unforgettable character. Mahie Gill of Dev D fame electrifies with the few minutes of her guest role; when Abhimanyu Singh carelessly says that a beating is all she’s worth, you can’t help agree.

There is much to be learnt from the film in retrospect. Prithvi Bana is a character present only to mark the vanity of Duki Bana’s confused calls for “Kranti”, a character just begging to relapse into useless and distracting comic relief. Yet he shines as an important member of the story. Only Prithvi Bana, Duki Bana’s wife and Anuja survive the onslaught of mindless politics – the only people, if you’ll note, who could tolerate the world as it is and still dream of a future brighter than that of Duki Bana.

In the end, the effect is rather angsty, frustrated and tumultuous – the very embodiment of dirty politics in play at every level of Indian life. Gulaal lives up to its name in a very abstract way – again Anurag Kashyap’s trademark. It is not the red powder used farcically in the movie which the name implies, but rather the unchecked flow of red blood which must accompany the characters’ fruitless struggle for power. It implies the tears that must flow to wash away the mask of Gulaal.

If you’re anything into Bollywood’s new matured avatar, not mentioning Anurag Kashyap’s fan, this movie is a must watch.

Rating: out of 5

Developed by Big Finish Games

Help a lost young lady remember her past in Three Cards to Midnight, an original hidden object game featuring a unique new way to play. Each rich location in this challenging game is full of items hidden in plain sight. Use your best deduction skills to determine which items to find by matching a series of keywords with the items in the room. Complete each chapter to reveal a little bit of our heroine’s lost memory and unravel the truth about her identity. More than the average hidden object game, Three Cards to Midnight also contains original puzzles to solve along the way. Get a sneak peek at this engrossing game with the free trial version, or get the full version and follow our heroine through eight riveting chapters of mysterious exploration. Turn over the Tarot Cards and discover the rich and compelling hidden object fun in Three Cards to Midnight today.

- Big Fish Games

Story: You’re in a dark room. And you can’t remember anything. You’ve just shuffled the pack of cards in your hands, but you can’t recollect doing it. What happened to your memories? What is lost among your store of memoirs? Follow the instructions of the stranger to read your past from your three chosen Tarot cards!

Gameplay: Frankly, Three Cards to Midnight has one of the most innovative premises in recent times. You are given from one upto four words, like “Note”, “House”, or “School”, and a room. Your task is to find all the prefixes and suffixes in the room which can be combined with the given word to form words. Like, for example, you can click on a key on the room to form the word “Key + Note = Keynote.” A completely new idea, but it is surprisingly easier than it sounds.

The plot unravels nicely throughout the game. The game provides you with three modes – Easy, Normal and Gamer. Trust me, the normal mode is a complete misnomer! If you’re a casual gamer, go for the Easy Mode. The other two modes will have you hooked onto the computer for hours. Warning: The Normal Challenge and the Gamer Mode are both for severely interested or highly expert gamers.

There are 10 chapters in all. The puzzles at the end of each chapter are truly spellbinding in their complexity and innovation. Chances are, you’re bound to skip one or two of them if you’re an average gamer!

A disadvantage in this maddeningly puzzling and tough game is the lack of hints and misses. You are given a paltry 3 or 4 hints for each room with upto 4 words. Misses are the number of times you can guess the wrong object to combine with the given word. That also, alas, is limited to 10 or so. Every time you complete 100 points by finding objects, you get an extra hint – but you can’t ever carry it over to the other rooms. Serves plenty of the purpose to keep the game very difficult!

Depending on how well you’ve performed in each room, how many hints you’ve used and whether you’ve skipped the puzzle at the end or not, each Tarot card you choose is assigned a specific star rating. By the end of the game, you must choose your best two cards to beat the game. As a result, you’ll find you need to do some of the rooms over and over again to get the things right.

Ambience: The first cutscene that greets you is pretty impressive – it is 3D graphics, although with low scope, but well animated. The graphics go downhill from there. Seriously, the graphics are cracked due to too much zooming, and they lack the clarity and colour necessary for a decent Hidden Object game. Nowhere in the game did I find an Options menu, where I can change picture quality or the resolution, so I’m bound to take it that the picture quality’s that bad. That is a major drawback.

The music improves as the game progresses and you get more into the game. It nicely brings out the dark mysterious undertones of the plot and the heroine’s struggle to come to terms with her own history mired in occult magic and desperate plots of murder and betrayal.

Bottomline:

The novel idea for the game and the plot filled with suspense are the chief reasons for the average gamer to try out this game. It is a reasonable game, long, different flavoured and with an awesome cinematic narration. This game is a must play for all. For most, however, making their way through the game without a walkthrough would be an impossibility.

Rating:

Download the full free version from AdnanBoy!

All alight at the Lucky Junction!

Story: Hanna Harlow’s Heavenly Homes is holding a contest on interior designing! And you, as Lucky Junction’s budding interior decorator, have decided to try out your luck in Hanna Harlow’s program. Get into designing your neighbour’s rooms and collect the items you need from their Yard Sales! Complete interesting projects and vie for the crown of the top designer!

A fun story definitely, coupled with the silliest detective subplot I’ve seen in years!

Gameplay: New ideas are fast flowing into the Hidden Object genre so that now there are plenty of games beyond finding clues, escaping and going after your lost fortune. Decorating rooms – now that’s a real novelty! In fact, it is much more captivating than the hidden object part.

You, as the unnamed designer, are employed by the townspeople to refurbish their rooms. You gather up the required objects from Yard Sales from around the town of Lucky Junction (that’s the HOG part) and then use them to create innovative projects. However, most of the yard sale screens are too cluttered to help you make much out – there should’ve been more hints. Although nowhere is it said so, you can gather more hints by clicking any star shaped object you find. Remember that!

The activities involving the projects are really fun when you do them, yet they’re little more than cleaning and painting. It is probably the anticipation of what the complete product will look like is what feeds our interest. Such minigames at the end of each project might look easy to err on, but honestly, they’ve a huge margin of error, and it doesn’t seem to me that it is even possible to get anything beyond 100%.

From time to time, these painting or spraying jobs will give you the opportunity to shake your can or refill your brush. Most of the time, you wouldn’t need anything of the sort.

The game menu has several choices. You can play in the Career Mode, which is the story mode, either with or without a timer. After you’ve finished with the career mode, the Lucky Junction Tour Mode is opened up – that is the pure hidden object game with a time limit to boot. So the game retains its replayability perfectly!

Ambience: Yard Sale Hidden Treasures Lucky Junction has a host of funnily drawn characters with absolutely rib-tickling names – like an Egyptian lady is christened Faye Rowe (Pharaoh), and an Eskimo named – guess what? – S. Keymo! Other characters include Mother Goose, Father Time, Rick Hoffen, Trish Thrasher, Grizzly Jones, Nikki Darking, Robort Robot, R. Master and Charly Pullman.

Boldly colourful and coupled with zippy music, this game does surprisingly well as a soothing casual game.

Bottomline: Hardly a glitch or a point of irritation. The silly and the cute combine to end in a breezy game. If you’re a HOG fan, or will love an addicting HOG game, this game is a must play. Why don’t I give it full marks? It isn’t unforgettably good, and it is too frisky for my tastes.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Download the full free version from AdnanBoy!

On a quest to recover Alexander the Great’s timeless and mysterious Scroll of Wealth, fearless archaeologist and adventurer Samantha Swift realizes that there’s more to this mission than she first thought. Now she’s racing against the clock to keep ancient magical powers from falling into the wrong hands! Discover the truth about King Midas in this exciting Hidden Object game, Samantha Swift and the Golden Touch!

- Big Fish Games

 

Story: Too complicated. I can’t explain. Suffice to know that it is impossible to digest it without playing the previous version. Samantha Swift is the daughter of renowned archaeologists, and the story involves her stopping an Indian lady from restoring Midas’ curse onto the world. Play this game of crossing and double-crossing to find out more! It is just too complicated, and sadly, not well presented.

Gameplay: Samantha Swift is a well done, pretty addicting game. The Hidden Object Puzzles are easy due to the colourful, broadly drawn scenes. In every scenario, you have a few really hidden objects, where you have to use some rescued objects together with something in the scene to unearth the objects in question. And Samantha Swift combines with it some of the tougher puzzles available at the moment in HOG games. Very few of them, if any, are easy. However, the instructions are clear and precise in most cases, so they shouldn’t be a sweat.

An interesting addition to the game is the Museum. You can collect objects of archaeological interest from all around the world and arrange them in your own spacious museum, in case you want to look at them or learn about their history later. Now that’s a new among history based games!

You are provided with a smart iPda to keep track of your game: you can quit, look up your contacts, visit your museum and stuff like that. This is not very new, just that you can change your skin easily and customize your sleek and modern communication device yourself.

The Hint system is fabulous here. I guess the developers themselves were tired of having to search every last pixel for objects and instead wanted to keep the players’ concentration upon the game and the story. So you can keep collecting and using the official “lightning bolt” hints as much and as long as you want. But you’ll hardly ever need them – for there is a system of unofficial hints on your Scanner! Yessir, just click on an item, and the Scanner will point out the object like a metal detector. Without a single penalty! Now I really wonder why it was called hidden object at all…

Another plus point: Samantha Swift has no timer.

Ambience: The Golden Touch has expectedly good graphics. The animation is the cheap cel type, but there aren’t many animated portions around, so I don’t think it matters much. Each scenario has its own unique music – like India, Ethiopia, Jerusalem, Russia, etc. Nothing to write home about that either.

Bottomline: This is yet another awesome solid puzzle cum hidden object game published by Big Fish Games. Maybe the only reason I don’t give it something higher is its unnecessarily complicated and detached story, and maybe because of the short length. I mean, come one, it should’ve been more than just finding six vials and a few scrolls!

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Help young adventurer Laura Jones and her grandmother discover Nikola Tesla’s greatest invention! After receiving a mysterious package full of clues from the late Tesla, the hunt is on! Solve puzzles, collect the parts needed to start Tesla’s invention, and pass the extraordinary trials. Laura Jones and the Legacy of Nikola Tesla will test your Hidden Object skills as you race against time and the other people chasing down the invention!

- Big Fish Games

Story: Laura Jones is back! This time she’s out to unearth the last invention of Nicola Tesla, the dead genius of her hometown. Tesla invented a marvelous machine before his death, but he dismantled it and hid it around for her friend, Sophie Jones to find. Now Laura, as an ancestor to Sophie, must follow up the clever clues left by Tesla and reassemble the machine – that could provide limitless energy for free!

But who else is out to grab the lost machine?

Gameplay: Laura Jones is a refreshingly good puzzle game. The puzzles are of a wide variety (none are repeated, I think), and mind, incredibly tough! Most of them, at least. Take for example, a puzzle about building the image of a dragon from fireworks. That is one of the most time-consuming and tough mingames I’ve seen in recent times. So go the others too. Luckily, there are alternatives for every puzzle you wish to skip, so no sweat!

The Hidden Object games, which form the main backbone of Laura Jones, have you finding proper, meaningful things having a direct bearing upon the game, and hidden in good places. That’s something unusual for hidden object games – so there’s another refresher for HOG fans! The puzzles about putting together or building things are short and to the point.

The game wouldn’t have been a bother at all if the hint system was slightly better. But no, it has to be horrible. Most of the time, the hint gives verbal encouragements, not even tips!

Ambience: Laura Jones is quite a homely sort of a game. Though the plot has all the makings of an adventure, the execution in a quiet city with old-fashioned people makes it much like, say, a time management game atmosphere without the rush. Instead of jumping down cliffs and snorkeling deep into caves to search for the lost machine, our heroine goes around solving the townspeople’s grievances – like exercising a cat, blowing up a balloon, catching hens and mice – to recover the parts!

The animation is fantastic, and yes, real animation, not low-budget flash games type. The graphics are cheery and colourful, in tandem with the music, but never very detailed or of as high a quality as the animation. Still, it is never much of a bother. The resulting impression is a cheerful and fun game.

Bottomline: The only reason this game doesn’t get a 5 is because of the overtly simple storyline and a clichéd (although promising) plot.

Rating:

This is one of those rare puzzle games published by Big Fish Games that will satisfy every palate. The animation is surprisingly captivating and flawless. The story seems interesting, though it doesn’t have any capacity to twist beyond your view. The game is sort of laid back, with bright, cheerful colours and sunny environs, yet the adventure seems undoubtedly promising. For once, finding hidden objects has a meaning and a direct bearing to the case at hand.

Verdict: Apart from the delicious yet simple puzzles (and just too simple a riddle), the game attracts for its animation and sceneries. Play this for sure.

I have never seen the Righteous Kill movie, so it is impossible for me to judge the game by the film standards.

As a standalone, the game functions above average. There are a few footages as narration, and others where frozen character faces are dragged from one end of the screen to another to imply animation.

The game seems easy and fun. The plot isn’t worth thinking about, it has a convenient feel of a Hollywood movie crime, so I guess it must be following the film itself. The music is good.

But the hidden object part draws your attention. It is easy to find the objects and it is, as I said, fun playing this game. Quite different from most hidden object games, perfect for the casual gamer, with no stress included.

Verdict: Try this game out at least, if not for the plot, if not for the hardcore secret agent feel, even if nothing, the hidden objects part is truly decent here.

Check out Big Fish Games for more info.

Help rookie FBI Agent Jennifer Lourdes, and veteran detective Alan Michaels catch the infamous Unicorn Killer! Track down the murderer, Ira Einhorn, as you bring him to justice in this exciting Hidden Object game. Travel all around the globe and explore important crime scenes. Based on a true story, Real Crimes: The Unicorn Killer, takes you on the long-running chase and extradition of this dangerous criminal!

- Big Fish Games

What a shock! And just the sort of shock I don’t like! Here I am, thinking that the game is taking a really interesting turn, and suddenly – “The End.”

Story: Ira Einhorn, the peace activist of the 60’s and 70’s, had killed his girlfriend and hidden her in his closet for two years before police finally got onto his scent. But his high profile political connections saved his ass as he flitted out of America around Europe with no one to touch him. Now, years later, the young detective Jennifer Lourdes arrives on the scene, ready to battle it out with Einhorn “the Unicorn” one last time and try to throw him behind the bars!

Gameplay: The story is actually mighty fine. It is matured, and is boldly undelined by the power-politics of the modern world. But the problem is this storyline leaves no scope for you to play, to use your detective powers. Neither is there a plot within the game – not even the semblance of that in the entire game. This is a hidden object game, with you playing as Jennifer on either Detective (without timer or random click penalties) or Rookie (both timer and penalty) modes. For most of the part, you’re following your senior detective Michaels to learn about Ira’s past. It could’ve been the prologue, with further chapters to follow when you do your own detection. No such luck. The game ends with the prologue itself.

Puzzles: This is a hidden object game. The hidden objects are remarkably well-hidden in wide angle views of the locations; it gets harder in the night locations. There are 5 or so Chinese Go puzzles hidden at places which, though unorthodox to be included in a hidden object game, are quite easy to solve. The other puzzles involve mini- games in the forensic lab like matching the fingerprints and match-and-pair. The fingerprint business is the only tough puzzle around.  Just like in baseball, each wrong guess causes a “strike”, and three strikes mean you lose.

Ambience: The game, however small in its gameplay, is outstanding in its graphics and animation. Especially the animation. Who would’ve expected FPS level animation in a hidden objects game? Yet it is so, smooth, high-level, believable animation! – a real pleasure when you compare this with the scratchy animations of most puzzle games.

Real Crimes Unicorn Killer is somewhat moody in its music. Each country has its own traditional music to go with it. But, hey developers, please change the error sound next time, it hurts the ears when you click on wrong places!

Bottomline: Again, an unexpectedly short game. The levels are fast-paced and small, action packed with serious lines and proper characterization of the criminal. Hardly 20 such levels on, you find yourself putting handcuffs on Einhorn. It transpires in the end that the heroine of the game is just a brainless amateur who has a tendency to mouth loud words but ultimately dangles around on her superior’s tailcoat. Play this only if you like short political-based hidden object games. Real Crimes does not have much uniqueness of its own.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5