AverageSizeFish's Profile
Stat Summary
- Average Rating:2.8
- Helpful Votes:2,910
- Reviews Submitted:173
- First Review:June 2, 2014
- Most Recent Review:May 1, 2017
- Featured reviews0
Status:
The shadow of the Jabberwocky, a terrifying fantasy creature glides above Wonderland! Help Alice restore peace and harmony back to the land!
Overall rating
4
/
5
88 of 98 found this review helpful
Charming, amusing, and fun
PostedAugust 19, 2014
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
5
/
5
Storyline
5
/
5
The graphics are sharp, clear, and pretty. The palette is rich in color and the art is very appealing. The music is a little repetitive but it's pleasant enough to not be annoying. There are no voice overs or atmospheric sounds.
The story is based on Lewis Carroll's Alice books. You play Alice and you are up against the Jabberwocky who is trying to take the magic out of Wonderland. It's very well done and really cute. I loved the story line which is sheer fantasy, humorous, and fun. Throughout the game and the HOS you will find Cheshire cat smiles that present a fact card with interesting information about the original story, its author, and more current adaptations of it.
Game play is logical and fairly linear. The story tells you what you need and where you need to find it. Once you know what you need HOS and puzzles appear in areas they weren't in before and they reward you with things you need to progress forward in the game. I pretty much always knew what my objective was and what I would need to do to achieve it.
The HOS were excellent. They are list finds with minimal interaction and there is a decent number of them. Everything you need to find is very clear, the interactions are logical, and nothing is really tiny. Difficulty ranges from somewhat easy to somewhat challenging. Someone who is very good at making HOS made these. The puzzles were present in a good amount and were fun to do.
The drawbacks include a custom cursor that you cannot get rid of and which, while responsive, is a little slow. Some might complain that they have to read too much because there are no voice overs. Others won't like that they cannot choose a level of difficulty. Also, to use an item in your inventory you need to drag it...it isn't point and click.
I don't care about choice of difficulty level myself but I know others will. I also don't mind the drag and drop thing especially when the game functions smoothly as it does here. If the developer would fix the cursor I would give this game a 5.
Overall, I enjoyed this game and found it charming. It's a super cute game that made my inner child laugh and say "must have".
I recommend this game!
Locate an ancient compass and ambush fish for five-star photos in this gorgeous underwater Hidden Object game.
Overall rating
2
/
5
5 of 7 found this review helpful
Has not stood the test of time - graphics are awful
PostedAugust 16, 2014
AverageSizeFish
fromUSA
Skill Level:Intermediate
Favorite Genre(s):Hidden Object, Puzzle
Fun Factor
2
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
1
/
5
Level of Challenge
2
/
5
Storyline
3
/
5
This is an older HOP game with graphics that are so grainy game play is significantly affected. The game also has significant lag.
The HOS are challenging but much of the challenge is due to the very low quality of the graphics. The puzzles are severely affected by lag. Game play consists entirely of HOS and puzzles so these problems affect the entire game. There is nothing here that works properly anymore.
This is, unfortunately, another example of a game that has been rendered virtually unplayable by the passage of time.
I don't recommend this game.
Pin the killer in this page-turning murder mystery by novelist James Patterson, and find hidden objects within nine distinct investigations.
Overall rating
3
/
5
2 of 2 found this review helpful
Promising premise - lackluster execution
PostedAugust 16, 2014
AverageSizeFish
fromUSA
Skill Level:Intermediate
Favorite Genre(s):Hidden Object, Puzzle
Fun Factor
3
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
3
/
5
Level of Challenge
3
/
5
Storyline
4
/
5
This is an older game and the graphics have held up well enough although there is some graininess to the scenes at times. There are no voice overs or atmospheric sounds. The music is unobtrusive and fits the theme of the story.
Game play involves a series of investigations performed to discover the identity of a serial killer. You take on the role of the detective, the forensic pathologist, and a reporter at various points in the game. Each "round" of investigation begins with the detective character who visits a crime scene complete with dead body or a location important to various suspects. This is followed up as you take the role of the pathologist and gather clues at the crime scene or process them in the lab. Lastly, the reporter character meets with people who know the suspects or performs research in the news archives.
A lot of the things you do as each character you do over and over and eventually the repetition made the game feel somewhat unexciting. Some of the tasks like "examining the dead body" or analyzing various pieces of evidence in the lab felt silly and lacking in challenge. The HOS included objects that were so tiny they were barely visible even to me and I like challenging HOS. None of the HOS scenes were particularly visually appealing and the lists of items to find were too short.
Overall, while I liked the story and I thought some of the puzzles and tasks were creative and interesting, the game grew boring as I did the same things over and over. The story unfolds too slowly and by performing rather simple tasks that are sometimes totally unrelated to it. The game just didn't grab my attention or hold my interest. I thought it had potential but, disappointingly, the way it was designed just failed to live up to that promise.
Nightmares from the Deep: The Cursed Heart Collector's Edition
Dive into an epic journey as a museum owner in pursuit of an undead pirate who has kidnapped your daughter in Nightmares from the Deep: The Cursed Heart!
Overall rating
2
/
5
2 of 3 found this review helpful
Dark graphics and boring game play
PostedAugust 16, 2014
AverageSizeFish
fromUSA
Skill Level:Intermediate
Favorite Genre(s):Hidden Object, Puzzle
Fun Factor
2
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
2
/
5
Level of Challenge
2
/
5
Storyline
2
/
5
The graphics, while clear, are so dark and dreary that it became almost a chore to keep looking at them. The art style is somewhat cartoonish and the palette ranges from dark steel blue to dark grey. It's just eye-strainingly dark throughout. The cut scenes are numerous to the point where they become annoying interruptions rather than interesting additions to the storyline. The voice overs are somewhat stilted and some are so poor they rapidly became annoying.
The storyline is one of those "ghost steals kid and mom has to save her" ones and there is nothing here that is unusual or even mildly interesting in how it is told. The girl is whisked away onto a ghost pirate ship and mom, of course, follows. She encounters ghost pirates who, amusingly enough, offer her "shiny fluid" and require aid with their "wooden limb". Maybe the suggestive nature of these terms escaped the developer but it had me laughing out loud. There was nothing interesting about the mom character that made me want to play as her and the daughter character was demanding and unappealing.
The HOS were mildly interactive and very easy. They were not present in an overwhelming number. Puzzles were present in average quantity and were of typical difficulty.
Game play involves a greater than average amount of backtracking within the limited confines of the pirate ship and revisiting the same areas over and over quickly grew boring...especially given the drab visual appearance of the game.
Overall this was a fairly tedious game with extremely dark graphics, uninspiring characters, and a boring story. I finished the demo but it felt like work toward the end.
I don't recommend this game.
Lynn’s wedding is interrupted by a ghost from Edward’s past.
Overall rating
3
/
5
15 of 24 found this review helpful
Unengaging story & too much direction
PostedAugust 16, 2014
AverageSizeFish
fromUSA
Skill Level:Intermediate
Favorite Genre(s):Hidden Object, Puzzle
Fun Factor
3
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
3
/
5
Level of Challenge
3
/
5
Storyline
3
/
5
The graphics are somewhat foggy in appearance as if they were done in watercolor paint with too much water added. The color palette ranges from washed out pink to washed out lavender with a few hints of steel blue. The voice overs were clear but often sounded stilted. They were occasionally saccharine-sounding in a way that made me grit my teeth. The atmospheric sounds and music were unobtrusive.
The storyline is the oh so typical "hapless fiance is kidnapped by evil doers on the eve of the wedding and must be saved" story. Our character is the future mother-in-law and, with her magical daughter's help, she must rescue the fiance. There was nothing in this story that was new or unique in any way. At the start of the game I kept getting tutorial pop-ups even though I kept checking the box to turn them off.
Early on you get an ugly little imp helper who sits near your hint bar and unfurls these long scrolls with directions for you whether you want them or not. Occasionally he will leap into the scene when you click on something even though you didn't specifically ask for his help. After he has performed the task an achievement bar pops out congratulating you for using the imp even though he did it on his own and there is, apparently, no other way to complete that particular task without him. It didn't feel very achievement-like. You also get directions about what to do next from the daughter character. Between these two elements I sometimes felt the imp and the daughter were playing the game for me.
There are a few HOS and all of them were easy. They are interactive in a very clever and fun way though with well thought out interactions that made sense. I wished there were more of them. The puzzles are present in about the same amount and they are also very easy. Some are so easy I wouldn't even call them puzzles. They were also fun to do for the most part.
The adventure component flows smoothly and I rarely felt I couldn't figure out what to do next especially with all the direction I was getting from the imp and the daughter character. The tasks you need to perform are the typical "find oddly shaped medallions to unlock doors," "find something to wipe dirt off a rune stone," and similar fare. One issue I had was that the game does require a decent amount of backtracking and there was a somewhat lengthy load time as I moved between areas. This kind of lag also affected the interactive HOS to some degree as well. The interactions took place in an overly slow motion kind of way.
Overall, I wanted to like this game more than I did. It has clever HOS that were fun to do and that's about the best thing I can say for it. The story is too familiar to be very interesting anymore and there was too much guidance from the helper and the daughter character for me to feel engaged in the adventure component much at all. It never rose above mediocrity and occasionally sank to a little annoying. It isn't poor enough for me to think that some people won't like it but I cannot recommend it either.
Travel to the dark and mysterious Cursed Valley and remove the curse to reveal the pages of the Magicians Handbook.
Overall rating
4
/
5
11 of 11 found this review helpful
Oldie but Goodie
PostedAugust 15, 2014
Fun Factor
4
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
3
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
Storyline
4
/
5
The graphics are mildly grainy but not significantly enough to make game play difficult. The soundtrack fits the theme of the game.
Game play consists of reading a book written as a tongue-in-cheek magician's training guide/history and then finding "enchanted" objects in a series of HOS. After you find the requisite number of objects you play a short game or do an unusual type of word search to "cast" a spell the book taught you. The game consists of matching strings of objects in a row and the word search consists of finding fragments of the words that make up your spell as they hover in a moving field of other word fragments. You can play in timed or untimed mode.
The HOS are very challenging and there are one or two objects that felt a little unfair because they were either very, very small or almost completely obscured. All the HOS are basic list finds with no interaction and you return to any given scene multiple times. I enjoyed the HOS even with the items that were so difficult to find. The round that ends the game is probably among the most difficult HOS that I've seen in a game of this type.
Overall, this is an older HOP game with very challenging HOS and a fun game between rounds. The graphics are not completely up to modern standards but they're good enough for the game to be enjoyable. The magician's book was cute and funny. If you like HOS this one is worth trying out to see if you like it.
I recommend this game!
There's a new sheriff in Meadows Town – and it's you! Can you stop a vengeful Viking spirit before she strikes again?
Overall rating
2
/
5
62 of 90 found this review helpful
Farfetched to the point of ridiculous
PostedAugust 14, 2014
AverageSizeFish
fromUSA
Skill Level:Intermediate
Favorite Genre(s):Hidden Object, Puzzle
Fun Factor
2
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
2
/
5
Storyline
2
/
5
The graphics were slightly grainy. The palette is subdued without being drab and the artwork fit the theme of the story. The voice overs were good enough to not be annoying but failed to achieve excellence. The music is fairly unobtrusive with occasional crescendos during appropriate moments of the game.
The storyline is farfetched in that it seems to take place in a small American town but claims that this town is under the influence of a Viking curse. To the best of my knowledge there were no Viking towns or colonies on mainland North America so accepting this notion strained my credulity. Why the curse waited hundreds of years to become active in modern times is not explained.
Other than these issues, the story is a somewhat typical one. The curse has resulted in severe weather disturbances leading most of the town's population to flee. Those remaining, apparently a small number of men, are being killed off one by one. The sheriff has disappeared and your character has been called in to take his place. You must figure out who is behind the murders while dealing with the supernatural force behind the curse.
Game play involves exploring various locations around the small town both by clicking potential sources of inventory items and by using a device that allows you to view supernatural forces. You scroll this device around the screen until you uncover 5 bright lights that charge it up. Then you scroll it over a colored area to trigger a cut scene that explains a little more about the curse. Using this device the first time was mildly interesting. By the third time it had grown tedious.
The objectives are clear but the tasks you must perform to achieve them are often silly to the point of being completely ridiculous. For example, you have to look at film using a microscope. Microscopes are not devices used to look at film. The same sort of silliness dogged the inventory items you find. For example you find a syringe filled with acid sticking out of the wall in an office. Who keeps syringes filled with acid sticking out of the wall in their office? Unrealistic things like this scattered throughout the game just ruined any immersion in the story for me.
The Hint button is often annoyingly thorough. For example, I clicked it and it took me all the way back to the start of the game because I had failed to pick up one of the collectible runes there. It then took me all the way back to where I had been when I first clicked it to perform an activity that would lead to game progression. This sequence took me from the second page of the map to the first page and then back to the second. Very irritating.
I played to the end of the demo and there was only one HOS. It was a list find with no interaction. I'm fine with that kind of HOS but having only a single one in the full demo is simply insufficient in a HOPA game IMO. It was so simple it barely deserves to be called a HOS. There was a single other thing that some people might count which involved dressing some guy that had passed out on a park bench. I don't consider a replace the object scene to be a HOS and even if I did having only two HOS is still insufficient.There were a handful of puzzles none of which was particularly interesting or fun. They were mostly easy.
This is a game that relies on it's "adventure" component for fun factor because it has so few HOS or puzzles. Given this reliance on adventure I would have liked to see adventure tasks that made more sense than the ones here. I also would have liked to have inventory items that made a little more sense. Overall, I felt this game was too poorly thought out to be much fun.
I don't recommend this game.
Discover the story of Jean Valjean, the hero of the novel "Les Misérables"!
Overall rating
4
/
5
108 of 118 found this review helpful
Difficult to rate - 3.5 - read caveat
PostedAugust 13, 2014
AverageSizeFish
fromUSA
Skill Level:Intermediate
Favorite Genre(s):Hidden Object, Puzzle
Fun Factor
4
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
Storyline
4
/
5
I knew I would be in a minority rating this game before I even looked at the reviews of others. The issue, I think, is that this game is being reviewed as a HOPA when it's really a classic HOP with the addition of a very minor adventure style game play component. Many people prefer HOPA's and if that's you then this isn't your game because it isn't a HOPA. I like a good HOP and had fun playing this game.
The graphics are sharp, clear, and very nicely done. The music is somewhat classic in style and fits the theme of the story. The atmospheric sounds are well done. There are no voice-overs.
The story is based on Les Misérables by Victor Hugo and the game follows the novel fairly closely. The story unfolds mostly through dialogue and frames of text. Because there are no voice-overs there is a lot of reading. If reading bothers you then you will not like this game.
Game play involves getting your objective from the dialogue and then moving to a location where you will discover a HOS and an occasional puzzle. Once the HOS is finished you can sometimes find other things at that location including another HOS or something for your inventory. Between locations you get more dialogue or a screen of text filling you in on more of the story.
Most things you need to do/find, but not all, are clearly telegraphed in symbols that show even before you click on anything. If you're looking for a heavy "adventure" component then you won't like this game. If HOS and puzzles are what you prefer you probably won't mind the "adventure-lite" approach taken here.
The focus of this game is HOS. There are many and they range in difficulty from moderately tough to pretty challenging. They are list finds with no interaction. The scenes are very crisp and visually appealing. I really enjoyed the HOS in this game but people who don't like HOS will not like this game. There weren't many puzzles but they were fun to do and imaginative.
The bad part of this game, and the reason for the caveat, is that the cursor cannot be switched for the system cursor and it is a little laggy. Also, there are screen loads between every scene. While the loads are pretty quick it still detracts from immersion in the game. You can't change the volume but since there aren't voice-overs if the music bothers you you can turn it off without missing anything. While these UI issues detract from the game they in no way make it unplayable or unenjoyable IMO.
Overall, this is a classic HOP game with the addition of a very minor adventure component. It has great HOS that fans of the older style of HOP game will really like. Fans of the newer HOPA genre may not like it. Based on UI I would give this game a 3. Based on fun factor I would give it a 4. As usual, I'm erring on the side of fun factor and going with the 4.
I recommend this game!
Secrets slither within the canvas and only you can uncover the truth behind the brush strokes.
Overall rating
3
/
5
4 of 4 found this review helpful
Cliffhanger with no sequel
PostedAugust 11, 2014
AverageSizeFish
fromUSA
Skill Level:Intermediate
Favorite Genre(s):Hidden Object, Puzzle
Fun Factor
4
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
3
/
5
Storyline
4
/
5
The graphics are sharp, clear, and colorful. The music is classic sounding and relaxing. It fits the theme of the game.
The game involves finding objects hidden in a great work of art. Most of the paintings are lesser known works from the mid to late 19th century. Once you've done a couple scenes like this you do a FTD with two versions of another great work. In between rounds of this you receive short chapters of a story. The HOS are timed and at the end of each you receive a score card that tells you how many misclicks you made and how long it took you. None of the scenes are repeated.
The story is about a man who wakens in unfamiliar surroundings and unfolds as he slowly begins to remember who is is and how he got there. I found the story interesting but it ends abruptly with a screen that says "To be continued". Unfortunately, there is no sequel that I can find so you never get to find out what happens next. This is somewhat annoying.
The HOS were moderately challenging at times but I also felt that the list of clues was sometimes misleading or unfair. For example, you're told to find an umbrella but there are two in the scene and only one is correct. The other is considered a parasol. This happens frequently enough to become a little irritating especially since clicking the wrong one adds to your misclick count.
Overall, I liked the game well enough to recommend it but the fact that it has no sequel following its cliffhanger ending lowered my rating to 3.
I recommend this game!
Travel through ghost worlds to investigate the mysteries of your family. Can you uncover the mystery of the tribal curse?
Overall rating
3
/
5
17 of 31 found this review helpful
An amusing departure from the norm
PostedAugust 11, 2014
AverageSizeFish
fromUSA
Skill Level:Intermediate
Favorite Genre(s):Hidden Object, Puzzle
Fun Factor
4
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
3
/
5
Storyline
3
/
5
The graphics are clear and well drawn. There were no voice overs and little in the way of soundtrack.
The storyline is an unusual one. Your character discovers the male line of his family is cursed and that he must create voodoo dolls to summon his ancestors to break the curse. In the process of collecting the items needed to make the voodoo dolls you travel back in time and through space to visit your now-dead family members...I think. There was something about a mermaid too. I'm not sure where the idea that voodoo dolls serve as anything but objects to curse people with came from or how the mermaid fits into the whole picture. To be honest, the story was a little jumbled and confusing. But funny.
Game play proceeds in a fairly linear fashion as you first investigate a house and are then transported to a small village where your grandfather lived. The tasks you must perform along the way are familiar from other HOPA games but with a unique twist on them. For example you need to make a pie for your grandfather to enlist his help but it must be a gingerbread man shaped pie.
The HOS are interactive for the most part and they are also pretty easy. The puzzles were few in number and also easy.
What sets this game apart from others is the narrative and dialogue both of which are delivered in English that is charmingly free of any adherence to the usual rules of English as it is spoken in English-speaking countries. To add to the fun there was one instance where the narrative was written in what appeared to be Cyrillic.
Overall, this is an imaginative, although culturally confused, game. It was amusing and made me laugh through the entire demo. I hope this team continues working because, at some point, I think they could produce games that are unique and really fun to play.
I don't recommend this game.