RRP £9.99 Lowest New Price £5.23

Focus Multimedia Ltd Release date: Friday 5th of September 2008 Format: Closed-captioned,

RRP: £9.99
Adventures in Picture Puzzling
Review date: 2009-01-04 Rating: 8 out of 10

I'm not a particular fan of hidden object games, but I think that this must be one of the better entries in the genre. It has the typical object search and spot-the-difference elements, interspersed with various types of picture puzzle mini-games; but there are also many neat design elements, which either add depth to the gameplay or enhance the playing experience, showing that a lot of thought has been put into the design of the game.

The graphics and sound effects are excellent, and the background music can be left playing as the various musical pieces are sufficiently innocuous not to get stuck in your head and drive you crazy after five minutes (music & effects sound levels are adjustable). There is a comprehensive - if rather generous - scoring system, with both bonuses & penalties, and a high score table. Provision is made for multiple players, each with their own saved game state. Saving is automatic on returning to the main menu screen. Finishing the main game, or finding the requisite number of hidden scarabs, unlocks the Secret Game Mode, which extends the playlife quite substantially.

The central story thread involves exploring many exotic Egyptian locations, both on land and undersea, to discover the titular Lost Tomb. There are numerous enhancing features to the game design; as part of the entertainment is discovering what they are, I won't describe them all here. One I particularly liked was that object names are not necessarily straightforward literal nouns; puns and other wordplays are sometimes used, so a bit of thought has to be applied to determine what to look for in a scene.

If you haven't played a hidden object game before, then it's worth giving this one a try. If you're a fan of the genre, then I'd very much expect you to like The Lost Tomb. It certainly inclines me to try other PopCap / SpinTop Games publications.