Casual Game Reviews

Luxor:

Developer/Publisher: MumboJumbo

Genre: Arcade, Shooting

Release: April 5, 2005

Modes: Single-player

Platforms: Windows, Android, PSP, iOS, Xbox 360, Wii, Mac OS

Availability: Online stores

It looks simple, but it's hard

         Luxor is about shooting orbs and destroying the ones that are traveling down the track. To destroy the orbs, you must ether, match up three colored orbs by shooting them with a matching color, make the orbs collide by destroying orbs between them, or using a power up to destroy them. It sounds easy but it isn’t as the orbs will keep coming until the bar on the bottom is filled up. Firing indiscriminately is the fastest way to lose. You need to be strategic with your shots and focus on racking up combos.

         The platform that you control with your mouse can switch between two orbs. The game in the early stages will almost always give you the color orb you will need, but in the latter stages, after level 5, it doesn’t do as well. I have had stages where the orbs are near the pyramid and I needed a certain color, but it kept giving me the wrong colors I didn’t need at the moment. It’s not a big flaw that you can’t work around it. For the fast majority of the time, losing is entirely your fault and success is based on your skill.

         The game has around 20 stages that will start to repeat once you get to level 5. There are 12 levels with 5 or more stages between. If you lose all your lives, you will start at the beginning of the level. I have had fun with this and I recommend it to anyone that wants a fun yet challenging arcade game.

Jewel Quest:

Developer/Publisher: iWin.com, Alawar

Genre: Match 3, Arcade

Release: July 14, 2004

Modes: Single-player, Multi-player

Platforms: Windows, iOS, Xbox 360

Availability: Freeware on PC

         Jewel Quest is a match 3 on a grid. The goal of each level is to turn all the squares gold by matching the objects before the time limit expires. While it sounds simple, it is hard due to not being able to match from across. You can’t see what will come next, so you have to match objects and hope something you get the objects you need, be be positioned correctly to be matched. The edges and the bottom of the grid are the hardest to match objects on. You end up relying more on luck to survive a level then on skill and planning.

Living Legends: Frozen Beauty

Developers: 4Friends games

Publisher: Big Fish

Release: 2013

Mode: Single-player

Genre: Hidden Object, Adventure

Platforms: PC

Availability: Big Fish game store

Story:

The artwork is beautiful, but
prepare to click all over the place

         Living Legends: Frozen Beauty is hidden object game with some puzzle solving. The story is about your sister being invited to the Queen’s castle to be her successor and you come along with her. Unfortunately, it’s a trap, and the queen took your sister to steal her youth. Now you must foil the queen’s plans and stop her. The game is based on the snow white fairy tale except if the queen was never defeated. While there are a few references to apples and gnomes, the plot has very little to do with the fairy tale. Even it’s ending is practically non-existent as it ends quickly and immediately puts you in the title screen without seeing the credits. You are not going to play this game for it’s story.

Graphics/Audio:

         Visually, the art has a nice realism paint style that is pleasing to look at regardless of games, 1028 x 728 resolution. While it looks nice, for a hidden object game, it ads a layer of difficulty due to the art looking rather flat. Objects and interactive items are flat images that are layered into the environment. In the hidden object mode, this can make finding the object you need to be difficult as it can be covered up to not look like what it should be. Some objects blend into the background that make it hard to notice. If you have color blindness then this game could become very difficult.

        There are only four songs in the sound track that loop when each one is completed. They are simple sounding with a fantasy feel to it. The amount of sound effects are just as bare as the soundtrack.

Game-play:

         The game-play is a mix of hidden object and puzzles. The hidden object mode happens when you click on a pile of objects on a screen. You are given a list of objects to find by clicking on them. These objects are not always easy to find due to their small hit-box and some objects barely look like what they are called. Some objects have multiple versions of them on screen, but only one of them counts. Luckily, there is no penalty for clicking on the wrong objects besides a small freezing effect that prevents you from clicking on anything, when you click to many wrong things. The game has a hint option that is a rose that slowly charges up and will point out a random object you are trying to find. Some of the objects have two stages of interactions where you need to combine two parts or need to open up something. Just like the small hit-box for detecting when you pick up an object, the hit-box for examine and combining two objects is very small. Sometimes the hit-box is hidden in the background and you need to click all over the place to find it. Each pile on a screen will have to be done twice, but not right away.

         The other aspect of the game-play is the puzzle solving. These puzzles tend to require gathering the needed items first before you can do them. They generally are easy with a few tricky ones, but you can skip a part of the puzzle once the rose fully charges up. There are three difficulty modes, but the only difference is how long the rose takes to fully charge and how much the game will guide you to the next destination. I was able to beat the game in 4 hours on the hardest difficulty for my first time through, though it could be beaten in half the time if you know what you are doing.

   

Conclusion:

         Living Legends: Frozen Beauty, is not a bad game, but it isn’t a good game ether. Nothing about it is amazing or remarkable and it is a forgettable experience. After a while, when I was laying, I was just clicking everywhere, without paying much attention to what was going on. It’s short and not very difficult ether which makes it a game I can’t recommend.

Love Alchemy: A Heart in Winter

Developer: ILving Studio,

Publisher: Alawar

Release: 2014

Mode: Single-player

Genre: Hidden Object, Adventure

Platforms: PC

Availability: Big Fish game store, Online Stores

Story:

And that is why you shouldn't date from Craig's List

         The story of Love Alchemy is about a woman who meets a man over the internet and goes to stay at a castle he owns. Left alone, as the man had business to attend to, the woman begins to explore the strange castle. The story feels like a simple excuse to have a point and click game with hidden object elements. Its premise is cheesy like a lifetime movie and the characters are flat with not much character to them.

Game-play:

         The game-play is the same as "Living Legends: Frozen Beauty". The only notable difference is the protagonist tells you what you need for a puzzle, you get no hints on hard despite the meter filling, and it’s more linear. It suffers the same flaws as frozen beauty. You can easily beat this game in 3 hours or less.

Graphics/Audio:

So our villain is into picking up women
 off the internet and turning them into furies?

         Visually, Love Alchemy has the same art style as frozen beauty with the difference, being that the environments are not as cluttered with objects. It also has a slightly more softer look to it’s visuals. Unlike "Frozen Beauty", there are more songs and they depend on the environment you enter. When entering an Arab environment, there is an Arab themed song playing. Sometimes the music will fail to switch over when you change rooms, but selecting a room from the map will fix it.

Conclusion:

MudKip electrocuting someone.

         I know I make a lot of comparisons to "Frozen Beauty", but that has to do with hidden object games being relatively similar to one another. Rather then write the same review over and over, I will make comparisons. Regardless of if this game is compared to frozen beauty or looked at on it’s own merits, it’s a lack luster game. It’s easy, the story is bare-bones, and it’s short which ultimately is not worth it.