Gardenscapes | Game Download

I usually don't buy hidden objects games because of their lack of replay value to me, but I really love this one.

The presentation is lovely. The story is that you inherited of your grandfather's house, and you're in charge of restoring its garden, and eventually to take part in a garderner's club contest. You will be visiting all of the house's rooms (15 in all) to sell the items hidden within them.

The game can be played timed or untimed. There are 3 different types of hints you can use: standard (and you'll get bonus money if you don't use those), as well as camera and thermometer hints that are hidden within the rooms (cameras show a flash of where the objects are located, while thermometers change your cursor from cold to hot as you move it across the scene).



You can serve up to 5 customers at once, for a total of 20 customers (objects) to find per room. The customers' faces appear on the left of the screen along with the name of the object they want to buy and how much they'll pay for it. Once you find the object, a pile of coins is displayed in place of that customer -- it's up to you to click the money to immediately get another customer, or wait until you finish serving one of the other customers. This way, you can control how many customers you're handling at once -- if they have to wait too long (I mean, really too long -- and this is independant of whether you selected timed or untimed mode) the amount of money they offer you for the object will slowly decrease.

Sometimes, customers will ask you to find a set of 2, 3 or 4 similar objects (for instances, 3 pairs of gloves). If you manage to click on all items in the set in quick succession, you'll get a bonus amount of money.

Every so often, you'll also receive letters from special customers asking you to sell them a set of 20 objects (for instance 20 coffee makers) hidden in a single room. Other times, you'll have to find a set of 20 objects hidden among several different rooms on top of the 20 standard hidden objects.

Also, on top of the objects you'll have to search for customers, a certain amount of loose coins are hidden within each scene. Don't miss them if you want the extra money.

What is really nice is that, not only does the list of objects you have to find changes everytime (that's the norm for HOGs), but also most of the items within the room (and the coins) will be moved around! So if you found that umbrella next to the chair last time, it might be a different size and in a completely different place next time! This truly add enormous replay value to the game.

Another thing that adds replay value is the beautiful garden. Between each room search, you'll be brought back to your garden where you can use the money you earned to buy items. For each item, you'll be able to choose between 3 different styles which you can mix and match anyway you want. You can even change your mind later on (for a small fee) and pick another item or style, so you can potentially continue playing forever as you change your garden around.

I really have nothing bad to say about this game except, maybe, that' I'd want more of it. It would be great to have even more rooms, or an even bigger garden to customize. I'd definitely pay for an expansion to this game, or a version 2 maybe.

I've played GardenScapes on 3 different computers -- on XP and Vista 32-bit, and currently playing it on Windows 7 64-bit. Works fine on all 3 operating systems. No problem at all.

source : amazon.com

Double Play: Jewel Quest 2 and 3 | Game Download

I'm a big fan of strategy games and enjoy thinking out the different moves and possibilities to find the best way to win the game. Unfortunately, these games give you a specific amount of time to finish each game, so you really don't have any time to think about different strategies. As such, you just end up quickly clicking on jewels and hoping for the best. It makes for a very dull time.

Graphics are good; story is interesting, but I wished they offered a timed and untimed version. With the untimed version you'd have as much time as you want to solve the puzzle (add some type of obstacles to the board, like bomb tiles to make it challenging).

The Rise of Atlantis [Game Download] - Reviews

This is in the same mold with games like Bejeweled, Kahuna, Jewel Quest, 7 Wonders, and probably there are tons more versions of this game out there. All of the above are fun to play with. Repetitive, yes, but it is engaging and entertaining that is why everybody keeps on doing it again and again.

I like the educational part that comes with this game. It teaches a little bit of history about the ancient cities of legendary Atlantis, Babylon and the surrounding areas each time you complete a level. The graphics are exceptional, the sound effects are dramatically exciting. Been playing this game more as opposed to the similar games mentioned above.

Game Reviews | Midnight Mysteries: Salem Witch Trials [Game Download]

This is a fantastic adventure and hidden-object game. You are an investigator of the supernatural. The ghost of the famous author Nathaniel Hawthorne ( who was born and raised in Salem Massachusetts and is in reality related to one of the Judges who oversaw the actual Witch Trials) appears before you suddenly begging you to help him escape the chains of injustice that have bound him to the earth by searching out the truth behind the infamous Salem Witch Trials.

This is a beautifully constructed game with very detailed scenes that have animated movement, the flicker of candelight , the moving of clouds overhead, eerie sound effects, and even many of the items you search for are themselves in motion or animated in some way.

There are plenty of hints available during the game in case you get stuck, and no timer or time limit on searching for items, which lets you advance at your own pace. This is a huge game, expanding to over 400 megabytes, which enhances its visual effects and the overall feel of the gameplay. Also, you can unlock an extra unlimited hidden-object game by collecting a certain number of clovers during regular gameplay.

The version I downloaded is for Windows and I encountered no problem with it. This software should work well on most Windows systems. The system requirements are 1.6 gig processor speed, 512 megabytes of memory, 460 megabytes of hard drive space, a video card with 64 megabytes or more of memory, and Microsoft Direct-X 9.0 or better. Most computers today running a Windows based system will meet these requirements easily.

To see your processor speed and system memory, right click on your "My Computer" icon on your desktop and then select, "properties". You can find out your available hard drive space by double-clicking (left mouse button) on the My Computer icon to open it, and then right clicking on the "hard disk drive" icon or image and selecting "properites". It will show "used space" and "free space".

At various points in the game you will encounter puzzles that you have solve in order to advance. For example, strange locks on doors that you have to figure out how to open. These are relatively easy to complete, it may take you a few minutes to figure them out but they are not too difficult. However, the game provides a "skip" button that allows you to skip over the puzzle and advance if it's too hard for you. The "skip" button that appears for each puzzle is an outline image of a raven on the lower right part of the screen that slowly fills in. When it completely fills in you can click on it to "skip" the puzzle you are facing.

At some parts of the game there are tasks that you need to complete in order to advance. These do not have a "skip" button, but instead require you to gather certain objects or manipulate certain items in order to find or locate a key element of the game. Again, I found these tasks to be not too difficult. However, two of the tasks really gave me trouble. I am going to explain these, below, and give you the answer to these tasks, so if you don't want to know.., and would rather figure these out on your own, don't read the next two paragraphs.

At one point in the game you are required to locate and obtain the corpse of the Sheriff who arrested one of the victims accused of being a witch. Finding the sheriff's coffin was not very difficult, but.., opening the sheriff's coffin made me pause. I couldn't figure out which tool to use to open it. I finally realized that you need to use the inventory item that looks like a key, it's actually a wrench and will unscrew the bolts on the coffin.

The other puzzle that baffled me, was near the very end of the game in the parlor at the House Of the Seven Gables, it involved opening the fireplace. There are two posts in front of the fire place, and when you press them they recede slightly into the floor and then rise up again automatically. I thought there might have been a certain number of times each post had to be pressed, but I finally figured out that they simply need to be pressed quickly in succession. Press one post, and as it is receding press the other post right away. This will open the fireplace and reveal the hidden stairway. At the top of the stairway is the final puzzle of the game, a locked door that requires you to fill in missing numbers in a sequence. It's much easier than it looks. Simply use the game pieces you find in the parlor and other areas of the game to fill in the missing numbers.

The only thing I was disappointed in is that I could not locate all 50 clovers during the game, I could only find 49 of them. Darn it. So I couldn't unlock the extra hidden-object game. I hope you have better luck on that than I did. Just be sure to check each scene carefully, the clover symbols are cleverly placed in discrete parts of the scenery.

- Mike Silverman 

source: amazon.com