Posts Tagged ‘bigfish games’
Samantha Swift and the Hidden Roses of Athena
Developed by Mumbo Jumbo Premium Casual Games, published by Bigfish Games
In Samantha Swift and the Hidden Roses of Athena, archeologist Samantha Swift has stumbled upon one of the greatest archeological finds in our lifetime! Sam`s quest to piece together the mystery and artifacts of the Roses of Athena is not without obstacles – she`ll have to use her keen eyesight to pick out clues, while she out-wits the greedy treasure hunter, Ravena Stryker in this hidden object, puzzle-solving Adventure.
Story: The talented field archaeologist Samantha Swift is the first to have found the location of the legendary scepter of Zeus! Sifting among the relics of the Acropolis in Greece, she comes across Athena’s shield.
Legend has it that Athena showered 6 virtues in the form of roses upon Athens – Rose of Industry, Rose of Conquest, Rose of Justice, Rose of Art, Rose of Wisdom, and the Rose of Skill.
Anyone who can gather all the roses onto Athena’s shield will gain the ultimate mastery of these virtues!
Shield of Athena
The (nearly) completed Shield of Athena
But a Greek priestess had dismantled the roses and spread them all over the world. Now it is the task of the intrepid Samantha Swift to travel over 3 continents to recover all the Hidden Roses of Athena!
The story goes surprisingly well. All right, the ending is a bit of jabberwocky, patched up, but then again – this game is not a story-centered game either. It is all about its enchanting gameplay.
Gameplay: Samantha Swift and the Hidden Roses of Athena is all about its gameplay. It has a twin system of hints – one is where you can click each object and see its silhouette in your scanner; second, where you use a lightning bolt to point out the position of a specific object on the screen. You can collect endless lightning bolts from each level. Needless to say, this makes playing the game surprisingly smooth.
But also, the game becomes incredibly easy. In a way, that is good, as now you can spend more time admiring the scenery of the countries.
Graphics and Music: No comments. Just awesome. The clarity is delightful for a lover of hidden object games, and the finer details and the colour in the scene put many a contemporary hidden object games to shame.
The depictions of the 6 countries, however, might leave something wanting – if you’re nagging about such finer details. Each of the scenes focus on a small area, and in the end, all the scenes look like the same country.
But don’t worry – it doesn’t affect the game a bit.
Goddess Athena
Bottomline: Hidden Roses of Athena is one game that leaves you just speechless. The bold colourful shots and the puzzles which amuse the intellect without taxing it make for a fine game. Definitely play this!
As also, play the next game in the series – Samantha Swift and the Golden Touch. After the Hidden Roses of Athena, the next game will probably seem slightly repetitive – it has the same structural storyline, same villain, and same plot. It is a positive delight, none the less.
Check out the review of Samantha Swift and the Golden Touch!
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The Hardy Boys: The Perfect Crime Review
Developed by Trine Games, produced by Jowood Productions and published by BigFish Games
A crime wave has gripped the Hardy Boys` hometown of Bayport! Help the Hardys solve this rash of crimes and unravel the Perfect Crime! It’s up to the Boys and their detective skills to follow the clues and discover an incredibly deep plot in this Hidden Object game. Hardy Boys – The Perfect Crime will challenge you with tough minigames and detailed scenes. Can you find the mastermind behind it all and crack the case?
Story: The Hardy Boys are renowned in their home town of Bayport for their exceptional sleuthing skills. Now a case of unconventional theft falls right into their lap. The threads, when followed back, lead to a hugely complicated and ominous conspiracy of fraud and smuggling. Are the Hardy Brothers up to putting the criminals behind bars?
The game is typically hardyish, centering around the (sometimes annoyingly) precocious highschoolers Joe and Frank Hardy, a little around their parents, and a host of personality-less characters in Bayport, including police officers who are always ready to let the boys play the detective. As you play through the game, you’ll find that The Perfect Crime is a misnomer for this game. The plot simply doesn’t have the finesse to match up to the elegant name, and all the underlying swiftness and cruelty it implies. The lack of interesting material in the plot is tried to be covered by some unnecessary complexity that doesn’t work. Still it comes fairly close, and qualifies as an average Hardyish story. Despite the tidy narration, not as awe-inspiring as a point-and-click crime story could’ve been.
Gameplay: However flimsy the plot might be, playing the game isn’t bad (provided you’ve turned off the music). You start off with great expectations from the starting page – designed like a detective’s scrapbook. For the first few minutes, your interest will be well rewarded, for it starts with one of the best aspects of the game – the witty banter between the Hardy Brothers, Joe and Frank!
Then we move on to the Hidden Object part. This part is easy enough, but that’s the start of all the troubles. Instead of “hiding” objects, they’re reduced to tiny faraway objects that would require you to resort to pixel hunting to pick them up at all.
Hints are provided, probably 3 at each level. I cannot be sure, because the number was never mentioned in the entire game.
And yes, some minigames are provided, but it seems the developers were pretty reluctant to put much effort to it. Three or four separate puzzles of nursery stage are replayed again and again, each more brain sapping than the previous in terms of simplicity.
Graphics and Music: The Hardy Boys: The Perfect Crime scores poorly in this department too. The graphics going with the HOG are incredibly mediocre, with a narrow angle, unimaginative decoration, and low lighting.
And the music? It is totally unworthy. I turned it off after the first few minutes of the game. Trust me, no detective could work properly with those tracks blaring in the background.
Bottomline: The sole point I loved about the game was the dialogues between the Hardy brothers. Their repartee and sarcasm are outstanding and refreshing after each level of tiring gameplay. If you’re a Hardy fan, this game could qualify on your list of Must Play Games. For others, you might want to try it out for the constant leg-pulling and the well-recited plot.
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3 Days Zoo Mystery Review
By Realore Studios, published by BigFish Games
3 Days: Zoo Mystery finds five of the world`s most unique animals stolen! Help Anna track down and return these rare animals to her uncle`s zoo. The ultra-picky zoo inspectors are on their way, so you will only have three days to solve this mystery and save the zoo. This Hidden Object Adventure game is full of challenging minigames and dark secrets. Will you be able to capture the crook and save the family zoo?
Story: Animals from your family zoo are getting stolen mysteriously. You, as the zoo owner’s niece, Anna, must take up the duty of finding the animals. But you must recover them in 3 days – or the zoo will be shut down forever!
The premise is short and simple, but both unexpectedly and refreshingly, it opens to reveal one of the most level-headed, seriously enjoyable and closely knit story in games of such genre. It is satisfactorily long, and although it sometimes drags for the game’s sake, you’ll never feel bored.
Gameplay: Just as the eccentric name might suggest, 3 Days Zoo Mystery has a sense of straight-faced humour in every single character interaction – from the biased sheriff to the clown. Sadly, it has been disappointingly underplayed.
The game unfolds not as Anna setting off right away to bring the perpetrator to book, but rather by she taking the most common method – informing the police. Such sensible steps build this game to be a very good homely tension-free detective game.
As you follow up links around town, moving from suspect to suspect and unearthing mind baffling clues, you’ll also have to do many of the townspeople’s chores for them – like stacking the dishes, serving food, arranging rooms, etc.
3 Days: Zoo Mystery has an added feature – it allows you the use of a Magnotron. What is the magnotron, you may ask. It is a brand new invention by your town’s scientist – it can make objects disappear into a parallel universe! The scope of its use is very limited, but nonetheless, it is a very interesting addition to this bright and cheerful game. And it also gives a chance to the Sheriff to barge in with one of his funny comments whenever you try to make his desk disappear!
Graphics and Music: No complaints on this point at all. Clear, soothing graphics and entertaining music – 3 Days Zoo Mystery makes sure it is perfect on each point.
Bottomline: This is one of those rare Hidden Object/ Adventure/ Detective games which does everything right and leaves no room for complaints. This game is a must play.
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Download the full free version from AdnanBoy!
Pahelika Secret Legends Review
By Ironcode, published by BigFish games
Long ago the ancient book of legend, Pahelika, was used to defeat an evil warrior-king. In order to protect the book, it was hidden and guarded in a secret temple. As the descendent of the original wielder of the book, it is up to you to prove your mind, body, and soul worthy of the magical artifact! Advance through unique tests, and travel to a mysterious world in Pahelika- Secret Legends, an exciting Hidden Object Adventure game!
Story: The ancient city of Roop Nagar in Mathura in India was full of happiness and sunshine….. until one day, the demon king Asura struck! Dethroned by the evil attacker, the sad young king fled, leaving his countrymen to doom. But one day he returned…. with the holy magic book of Pahelika. Alone he dueled the invincible Asura, and alone he defeated him – by the power of the book!
Zoom out to years later. You’ve just learned about this legend, and your desire to test this incredibly story is aroused. To get the book, you need to finish six of the toughest puzzles of all times. Can you retrieve the book of Pahelika?
Resembling Azada 2: Ancient Magic on many counts, Pahelika also uses Indian references to spice up its occult theme. This bit is OK, given that Developers Ironcode are based in Dehradun, India, but in the grandeur of the magic book, it conveniently forgets to mention the history and identity of the player. And why the hell the secret portal to getting the dangerous book was in his storeroom.
Not that it really matters, because as you’ll see, the game is so outstanding in all its aspects that it completely eclipses this bit of patchwork.
Gameplay: When the game tips during loading the game says that 2000 man hours were spent in making Pahelika, you have to believe them. There is no way those impeccably flummoxing puzzles could have been made otherwise.
Let’s start from the beginning. After a short graphic novel styled narration of the first part of the story, you are presented with the tutorial-cum-prologue right in your messy storeroom. As you learn to feel your way around the game, you also assemble the portal that can transport you to the different levels of the riddles that hold Pahelika secure.
After that’s done, comes the main 6 levels of the game. Trust me, each of the levels are tiny in length, but each is so dumbfounding in its unique puzzles, you’ll be lucky to get even a few steps through without the strategy guide. Primarily, what makes the levels such a punishing insult to your intelligence is because often the connections required to be made are by quite nonconventional methods, or because your path is strewn with distractions.
And just let the puzzles requiring you to solve two or three different rooms simultaneously come up – you’ll be in for a ride!
There are some minigames from time to time – like guessing the sequence, jigsaw puzzles and sliders. Needless to say, the developers have made them as tough as possible too. The only parts that are easy are the questions you have to answer to the magical guardians throughout the game.
Graphics and Music: Again, a worthwhile result of the hard work that went behind Pahelika. The 3D graphics, while not particularly outstanding, are better than most, and anyway, who needs high definition graphics when you’re tearing your hair off after some riddle?
The opening menu is quite quirkily impressive. It depicts the main character’s study, and you can click on the different items in the room to access the standard menus.
Strategy Guide: Since Developer Ironcode has thoughtfully provided a strategy guide to the game, apprehending the impossibility of most players to advance in Pahelika, a note must be made on thatt too!
All in all, the strategy guide was fairly helpful. It doesn’t list the detailed solutions of all the minigames – like the sliders or the sequences at least. If nothing, they could’ve added a “Skip” button within the game, because that is where most people will find themselves stuck.
Warning: After you’ve read the guide, you might feel very stupid for not noticing the very obvious solutions to your problems, most of which are present hidden in the very offending room itself. So try a bit harder before you reach out for the guide!
Bottomline: Just like Azada, Pahelika will be a purist puzzle lover’s dream come true. It has all the elements of a few grueling hours in front of the screen, albeit not very intelligent, but vexing at the least. It doesn’t waste more than the requisite time bothering about the story, or the animation, or the effects. It just gives you the hard puzzles. And you can have a field time solving them, or trying to, if nothing.
Perfect game. This is a must play for anyone who loves puzzles!
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Adventures of Robinson Crusoe: Review
By MagicIndie Softworks, Published by Big Fish Games
Inspired by Daniel Defoe`s classic masterpiece,Adventures of Robinson Crusoe is a story of a man who survives a terrible shipwreck and finds himself cast away on an island in the Caribbean. In this incredible hidden object adventure that spans over 28 years, help Robinson explore the island, fight with cannibals, visit a lost village and construct a new boat to sail back home!
Story: Who needs to be reminded of Daniel Defoe’s classic 17th century story of Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday? Robinson Crusoe, the strapping young son of an English merchant, sets sail one day in search of adventures. The rest 20 years are history.
The game never veers off the main course of the original story. Highly linear, and highly subjective, the game includes only the pressing highlights of Robinson Crusoe’s life in a compact format. And oh, the entire story is narrated at the beginning of each of the chapters.
Gameplay: Adventures of Robinson Crusoe includes 6 chapters, each subdivided into 6 others – so a total of 36 parts. You’ll find Robinson Crusoe a small and fairly easy game – except in a few places. Those certain places, heh heh, you can find yourself desperately stuck without any hints.
Unless you’re ever stuck, the game is easily finished under an hour.
The game is built around Robinson Crusoe’s long toil to build a new boat for himself. You don’t directly participate in any of the boat building activities, but everytime you successfully finish a chapter, you get the option to update your boat. I wish there were some direct involvement required for constructing the ship – could’ve an extention on the game.
The hidden object puzzles as well as the minigames are quite easy – except a few places I talked about before. You get the usual number of hints, and you can add more by locating any inscription on wood in the scenes. Keeping in sync with the new style, you need to interact with part of the environment to gain some of the objects in the list – opening a chest, pulling a chain, looking into a sack, etc.
Graphics and Music: Adventures of Robinson Crusoe comes with crispy fresh and bright graphics, suitably accompanied by a mix of middle age English and modern music. Cheerful atmosphere alright!
Bottomline: A short game, with not too much stress on syncing with the main story. So what? This at least has nothing unnecessary to clutter it up, nothing excess to bore you. It is just an hour or two of good old plain entertainment. And mind boggling puzzles.
Go for it!
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