This was a nice, pleasant game, overall, but the problem was the storyline. Too confusing to understand, especially if you read the diary... and in the bonus chapter happened the same. No foretell on what you were doing and what you were supposed to do whatsoever.
Pros: - Breathtaking artwork! The detail in most of the scenes was just beautiful, and the statues depicted in most of the locations were amazing! Fantastic graphics with an actual magical feel to them; - The music wasn't intruding and nothing special. However, in the bonus chapter, when you find the little kid imprisoned, the track that plays in that location is really beautiful; - Beautiful concept arts to buy! - The dragon in the tavern was so well-made! It was really beautiful! - Props for the developers and the creators of this game for creating a game with a lot of different mechanics, including the market where you could buy artwork and music pieces, as long as you had enough coins. Such coins could be collected by finding flowers that weren't hard to spot since they blinked, and by finishing the hidden objects scenes and puzzles as long as you didn't use a hint or skipped them;
Cons: - Terrible journal translation. The lucky thing is that most of the time, you can "decipher" what's supposed to say; - Confusing storyline. I didn't get most of what was happening except that the main character's sister was missing and neither did I care for the characters. - In the bonus chapter, when you start the game, there's no cutscene or indication whatsoever on what you're doing there (who was Joseph?);
Pleasant game, overall. The graphics and the artwork, for me, totally made up for the scrambled and confusing storyline. Try it for yourself!
This was a really great game, and although initially I was going to give it a 5 star rating, I ended up giving it 4 because, for me, the Collector's Edition extras weren't that worth it.
The pros: - Wonderful, crisp and clear graphics, just beautiful; - The presentation was really beautiful, specially the journal, and it had interesting information too, so I loved to read it; - Top notch story development and investigation. It was a pleasure to know more about what happened to the students and what was Dire Grove all about; - For once, I enjoyed these live-actions videos! The woman who played the main character, Alison, did great on her role (except on the screaming parts...); - The environment was exceptionally well-built and the ambient sounds were a delight to listen to, since I always play games with earphones; - The music was beautiful and very soothing and there was a track that had an ethereal feeling to it. Amazing!; - The story was quite something and I just loved to investigate the abandoned and frozen town!;
Cons:
- For me, it wasn't worth the CE price. There were little achievements and there wasn't even a bonus chapter and so it was quite disappointing.
That's it! This game was just great and I really felt like a detective and, overall, this stop in the freezing cold town of Dire Grove was definitely worth it!
Oh no. I really, really loved this game when I first played the trial, and even after playing the normal version I still did love it. But after a while the insane back & forth started, the "too many HOG's" started, and I couldn't take no more.
I couldn't and I didn't wanted to finish this game. I got tired and impacient playing it! By the time I got to the swamp maze to get to the church again, I gave up.
Here are the cons:
- The mechanics of the game are slow (menu, cursor speed, the rain effects also made the game slow); - Way too many hidden objects by the end; - Useless map; - Something that ruined the story completely and the overall game, too: I made some significant and interesting discoveries and yet nothing would happen or change in the game; - The back and forth. OMG! Unbelievable. I never had to "back & forth" so much in a game ever before. This is mainly what made me so bored playing this game; - This game didn't advance fluidly at all. At all. - The hint wasn't very helpful; - This is no intuitive gaming experience; - Frustation. Desperation.The distance between the hidden objects scenes. One in the canteen. The next one in the swamp hut. The objects had to be used in the tunnel. 'Nuff said;
The pros:
- Great, memorable music; - Wonderful background noises, the whispers, specially!; - Pleasant graphics with interesting and diferent perspectives; - Lunna was nice, overall; - The atmosphere was really eerie. Amazing; - Nice development of the story in the first night and in about half of the second; - The "first night", "second night" and "third night" thing, was really nice since every night you had different areas to explore in places you had been before. - i loved the Hawkins school building. Very well achieved and very interesting to explore (but not so by the end of the game...);
So much for the 4 stars I wanted to give it initially... I'm so disappointed since it was an amazing experience in the beginning, but not overall...
When I started playing "Keepers" I instantly loved the game and was engrossed in the story, but after a while I got tired of it because there were a bit too many hidden objects scenes and the clicking penalty was infuriating! (This game is a huge file!)
Pros: - Wonderful graphics; - Great environment; - Amazing music; - Very good voice-overs, specially Vlad's; - Nice story (although done over and over again in movies, it was different from any HOG I ever played); - Gory, for a change!
Cons: - Clicking penalty, rrrr!! If I clicked about three times in a row there would go the cursor again! It made me really mad because it happened very frequently and sometimes I would click on the right object; - A current problem that I encountered in this game was that when I found the object that was asked for, I would click on it and nothing would happen and it was the right one! It was really frustrating because it can only be a problem that wasn't noticed while developing the game; - The story, while it started out promising, started to descend for me, and I don't know why! It started to bother me playing the game and I was just hoping to get it over with; - There was a bit too much of back & forth; - The main game was considerably short; - I was really done when I got to the bonus chapter and I didn't even realized that there were two! It was a nice addition, but since I couldn't take anymore of the game, I didn't like it;
I really loved this game when I started it, but after returning to the Mansion, I lost interest in it and was mainly bored because of the hidden objects and because nothing ever happened again after the grisly scene in the hotel.
I wanted to love it until the end since it was a different experience from the regular HOG, and although I don't hate it, I got too tired of playing it. Maybe you won't!
Oh boy, these developers did it again. This game was just wonderful on all levels. These devs do extremely well in the "space" genre, so what we have here is a very enthralling storyline with a wonderful development and amazing environment that mends perfectly with the story.
Pros: - The graphics are marvellous! They look realistic but not too much, just the way I like it. And they also have the right amount of crisp and are very clear; - The environment is so well made, I found it hard to let go of the game. Fort Nightingale is very well depicted as an abandoned town but you still can sense that something's not right; - The ambient sounds are top notch. The rain falling in the town, the machinery sounds on the spaceship, the birds singing in the Indian reservation all make up for a very captivating and fascinating experience; - The music is nice, too. It doesn't intrude and is eerie, just like it should be; - The storyline is very interesting and very well unfurled through character dialogues, cut-scenes, newspaper articles and the journal. The premise that I was actually going to see the "Moon People" was wonderful and those government conspiracies sub-plot was also great because I love these things and because it was really well made and everything made actual sense overall; - The voice-overs for the "alienated" children was very well made and it sounded very "robotic" which just fitted perfectly and made you feel opressive while around them; - There were just enough hidden objects scenes and I just loved the ones where you had to put items on the scene instead of just looking for them! The objects were easy to spot and the scenes were very crisp and also clear; - The bonus chapter was completely worth it because it had the right length, the story was interesting and it had a mystifying environment! By the end f the bonus chapter, since it told something that had happened before the main game, I totally felt like playing the game again!;
I have no cons whatsoever against this game.
This game was, overall, a very special experience and it was definitely a worthwhile one. "Alien Town" shows just how deep and engrossing a hidden objects game can be. So much, much more than just a "hidden objects game"!
I've played this game twice already and I really liked it both times. Its an interesting take in HOGs storylines because you have to help the patients of the Sanitarium with their fears.
Here are the pros: - Nice, clean visuals, pleasant to look at; - The music didn't annoy me (which is saying much, considering its from ERS Studio...); - It felt great to help the patients with their fears and it was fun, too; - Considering the insight they give you on their patients and the way the story was built, I felt compassionate for them (my favorite was the one in the stamp room) ; - I thought that the addition of the "Medical Charts" was really nice and you could learn more about the people you were helping; - For once, the hidden objects scenes on this game didn't bothered me. There was a significant amount of them, but I played them just fine and it was really easy to spot the items; - The storyline was well achieved and I actually liked the main character (the one we play as); - This game was actually creepy at times!; - The main game was really long, but it was worth it; - The bonus chapter was just the right length, not short at all and you got to finally know who was that boy who had been following you around;
The cons: - Just one. I felt that every single time I clicked on a close-up of any area, a new entry would be added to the "Notes". I felt frustrated with this because there were a lot of entries that were useless and there were way too many of them;
Overall, "Haunted Halls: Green Hills Sanitarium" was a great and solid game, and although I liked it a lot, it brings nothing new or worthwhile to the genre. And that's why I think its easily forgettable.
Oh, dear! This game was a total mess for me... ERS did it again. They made a game that has the intelligence of a rotten vegetable. The storyline is completely impossible to understand and the overall game makes no sense at all. At all!
Cons: - The storyline makes no sense whatsoever. "What is going on in this game?!" crossed my mind a lot while I was playing. The maid mentions the diary of the murderer where he describes three murders about to happen and when you open up the diary you find nothing. Alright, so much for keeping up with the story... The girls that got murdered. Who were they? Obviously, they were implanted in the game for the "shock factor", right? Because, otherwise, it makes little to no sense why they were murdered since the target ends up being someone else. Why did the maid asked you to investigate in the first place when after that she just keeps obstructing your very investigation? Why all those close-ups of the Conti sons and the replay of the "I'm getting married" thing?; - The "game" itself also makes no sense. You finish an intricate puzzle and a secret cache opens up on the wall. Wanna know what's in there? A screw. Okaaay... These little things build up for the constant ridiculousness of "Sinister Obsession"; - The music at first probably won't bother you, but then it will become annoying and repetitive since not only are the same tracks always playing over and over again, but they all sound alike; - The diary is not used to keep notes. Nooo. It tells you every little thing that you must do;
Okay, let me just say what I liked: - The graphics; That's it.
I've played some dumb games, but this one takes the cake all day. Every day.
This game could have been great, but the way the story was told it felt that it was being rushed and the game's locations felt insipid, too. I thought that they were there, well, just because.
Here are the pros: - The graphics in the normal gameplay (excluding HOS) was just beautiful, top notch! - There were only 4 characters that I liked (the supporting ones): the little wooden doll, the spindler, Bannesworth and Mr. Beaker. They were lovely to look at, their voices were perfect and they were actual interesting characters. - The steampunk bits were lovely, too. (I wish they would make a game based on it...); - The fight with the spider was very innovative in a HOG and fun, too (and her voice was creepy!); - The cutscenes were beautifully made and pleasant to look at; - The character art is amazing, they are really well drawn;
And the cons: - The hidden objects scenes were probably the worst that I have ever played. The graphics, in comparison with those of the normal gameplay, were terrible, making the scenes uninteresting. Some of the objects were really, really small and there were too many scenes of HO. Because of all these factors, everytime I had to play another scene, I just felt like uninstalling the game (luckily for me, the game was short) and it was sooo unnerving...; - The main game was actually pretty short; - The main characters (Belle, the Beast and the Enchantress) were completely bland and unsympathetic. You saw very little of them and, to make it short, they were one-dimensional characters; - The storyline was told very rushedly and, so, I felt no connection whatsoever with the story. It felt very bland; - Definitely not worth the CE price (for me, at least). Not only the bonus chapter was equally short and had the same story has that of the main game, but it was the only thing you had as "Extra" (the story was way too long to be reading on a screen);
This "Mystery Legends" was beautiful to look at, but it had no depth and it wasn't fun for me to play at all.
Ok, first off, I couldn't play the game until the end, I had just enough and could not take any more... For about the first 30 minutes I was really into the game, but after that my interest started to descend 'til I had about zilch interest in "Mountain Trap". To be honest, I kinda felt "trapped" in this game because I really wanted to play it until the end but then I lost my patience.
First, the cons: The game is totally linear, which means that it moves at a completely sluggish pace; As I have read in another review here, certain objects that you pick up along the way that seems to be totally obvious where you can and have to use them, just won't do for that end. For example, you end up picking up a scalpel and you'd think it was obvious that you could use it for cutting a sack, right? Wrong, very wrong. That means that everytime you pick an object, you will only be able to use it in one place, which means the game moves along like a crippled snail just like I mentioned earlier; This game will probably make you question your own intelligence. For about 98% of the game I didn't know what I was supposed to do and where to go next. Which means that the hint system is not helpful at all. There was no guidance whatsoever and this was the reason that made me lose completely any interest in the game because everytime I gained a new object I knew that I would have no clue where to use it next; There was a bit too much back and forth. I've played games with a lot more before, but in this game this is a complete minus; The game moved along based on the hidden objects scenes, which were way too much, by the way; The storyline: same old same old; The mechanics of the game are slow, just like the development (cursor, menu);
I'm probably better off by just mentioning the pros now, because the rest of the game is a giant con: The graphics were just beautiful, top notch. The mansion was beautifully designed, really; The music was very calm and wasn't intrusive, it was nice, actually;
I just had to get this over with already. Ufff... This game was a total let down and I lost my patience with it, which is saying much. Don't play it if you're looking for a calm or a good game, but if you're patient and can cope with the snail-like pace, the "I-have-no-clue-what-to-do-next" part and the general bore of it, go for it. You might like it. I know I didn't.
"Ice Rose" was probably the most relaxing game I've ever played. The graphics are crisp and clear, just beautiful.
Here are the best things about the game: The graphics, of course, as mentioned before are wonderful. The snow seemed so realistic!; The presentation (journal; inventory, etc.) was just beautiful, too; The pace of the game is almost linear but it's very calm; The hidden objects scenes were beautiful and very well drawn, it was fairly easy to spot the things you were looking for; There weren't too many HOS, just enough; It was nice to find out more about Kay and Gerda's story as we proceeded through the game; The bonus chapter was equally beautiful and just the right length and the addition of the new villain and the story was interesting, too;
Now, the reasons why I won't give it 5 stars: There weren't voice-overs (and in certain games it makes no difference) but in this case, I wish there were because of the epic story being told (Snow Queen) and because it would make the game feel less hollow; The music, although it didn't bothered me much, after a while it started to do so not because of the melody itself, but because the same tracks were always playing over and over again; The storyline, although interesting, has been done before and it didn't pull me in, like the bonus chapter did; "Edward" and the "Ice Queen" seemed like bland characters to me. I didn't felt any empathy for them;
Overall, this game was a very beautiful one, but it felt very empty, somehow. Still, it's worth a try for sure, because I loved it either way. Now I can't wait for "Frozen Beauty" to be released!