Hidden Object Games

[Cerys]

I play these for no-brain relaxation some weekends.  I get the trial versions free and zip through them in a session or two, usually.  I have discovered several things about them.

1. The more interesting the storyline, the shitter the actual gameplay.
2. They seem to be created by people who don't give a damn about the fact that magnifying small images tends to make them blurry.
3. It's always the same mouse/duck/frog.

Oh, and if you're playing one of these games you always have to bear in mind the fact that the makers might be dickheads.  That way you're less likely to spend ages looking for a flute, only to click on the 'hint' button and find out that what you should actually have been looking for was a clarinet.  See also flower/plant, dragon/dinosaur, dog/bear.

Anyone else succumbed?

[quadraspazzed]

I FUCKING HATE THEM!

I've played a few free ones on the iPod Touch which were ok to pass the time cos they were, y'know, free but why anyone would pay money for them is beyond me. Except of course, I once did - accidentally. I "read" (to be honest glanced at, looked at the final rating and though well this has got be be ok) a review of the "adventure" game Cate West - The Vanishing Files for the DS. When it arrived, fired it up only to be greeted with hours upon hours of three (or was it four) different variations on this tedious pixel hunting shite. Perhaps it would have been the tiniest bit bearable if the story was in any way engrossing, but it wasn't. I thought I was ordering a graphic adventure - having just completed the wonderful Broken Sword port and naively assuming that the DS was now where it was at for 2D point & click adventures. I thought hidden-object games were things only found for €0.99 in the realms of the iTunes Store, little did I know that a company could get away with charging 23 fucking Euro for them. My own fault of course, but that just makes me all the more bitter about it.

I guess the main thing I hate about them - aside from the often appearing Americanised-name-for-something-we-have-a-different-name-for-which-makes-it-a-tedious-randomly-tapping-items-uberchore - is that the objects you have to find bear no relation to the story. It's just random objects that you have to find in a cluttered room. Also, the fact that lots of things are out of scale to each other is painful to me in ways, and for reasons, I don't quite understand (eg a screwdriver that's the height of a wall).  I honestly have had more fun tidying my own cluttered house - at least when you find something interesting it's a real tangible thing.

[quadraspazzed]

O/T - but I just have an overpowering urge to vent. I also cannot stand "adventure" games that are in fact "logic puzzle" games disguised with a thin veneer of story-telling. Games like those Professor Layton ones that everyone was raving about a couple of years ago. The prime example (mainly, again, because it involved me paying money for one due to my own stupidity) is Hercule Poirot's ABC Murders on DS. Once again assumed it would be a point 'n' clicker (hopefully in the vein of Sherlock Holmes PC games The Serrated Scalpel or The Rose Tattoo) only for the first "puzzle" to be along the lines of If Train A leaves at X and Train B leaves at Y but makes more stops but is fasterOHFUCKOFFDIDIREALLYPAYMONEYFORTHISBOLLOCKS???!!!

Yes, hate, pure hate, is what I feel toward both these types of game. Why can't they make new honest-to-goodness 2D point and clickers for the DS? It's the ideal fucking format, right? Broken Sword was really good, why not make some original ones too?

(If there are any good ones, then please do suggest them to me)

[Cerys]

I've just played Jack the Ripper - Letters from Hell and oh by all the hells is was an atrocious piece of shit.  There's a part of it in which you have to find all the graffiti in Mitre Square ... and then, some time later, click on a photograph to put it all back again.  So you have to remember, without knowing in advance that you should remember, where each scrawl was.  So either you end up having to click at random, or use the hints.  Of which there are nine.  In the entire game.  I don't even know if I finished the game because there's a point at which the protagonist goes home and finds a message from Jack scrawled on his wall - he has to leave London, but as soon as he leaves the room it's Game Over, with no mention of whether the game is over because he's escaped, or else been shredded by Jackieboy.  And to find out if there are other endings I'd have to go back and play it again.  I think not.

[quadraspazzed]

Sounds... hellish! Did you actually pay $7 (or GBP equivalent) for that?

Also,

dog/bear

:D

[Cerys]

Sounds... hellish! Did you actually pay $7 (or GBP equivalent) for that?

No - I never pay for them.  I just play the free trials until either I finish them or I run out of sessions.

[AsparagusTrevor]

I actually enjoy these games sometimes. I've only played the Jewel Quest Mysteries ones, and they have the added bonus of having the Bejewelled style grids on it too. My wife loves them, she gets addicted for long stretches. I'd rather play something with guns in it obviously, but they're good for a bit of a change and don't need a lot of effort or thinking, which is a plus.

[Neomod]

My 70 year old mum loves these. I can't download them fast enough for her*

*I never pay for them

[Cerys]

The problem I have with them is the fact that I'll start one, think 'oh, it's a bit shit really isn't it' - but still carry on playing it.  I suspect this might signal a tiny little addiction.