Review Of Hidden Expedition: Amazon PC Game

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Not the game for me… (2 out of 5)

When it comes to PC gaming, I am all about it.  I play just about everything I can get my hands… er, fingers, on.  And, in writing reviews of PC games so you will know what is worth playing - and what is not - I have found that there are actually games out there that I just do not care for.  And, I hate to say it, but Hidden Expedition: Amazon is one of them.  I’ll go through the aspects of the game and review them all so you can see exactly what the game is about, how to play it, and how to understand it.

Game Basics - This is an “I Spy” game.  Pretty much, you are an explorer trying to find out where the professor went and you go through levels finding a list of things and special items to make it on to the next level.  In each level, there are 2-4 different maps that you must find everything in.  And, each list has 12 items that you have to find - such as toothbrushes, bullseyes, stars, and even doughnuts.  As you progress through the levels, you come to an ancient Egyptian Headdress that you must play like a piano in the correct order to gain access to the next levels.  Then, you have to find 20 feathers on a one-eyed man with a monkey, and so forth as the “pages” from the professor’s journal state. 

Graphics - The graphics on this game are it’s saving grace.  I have to say that the puzzle challenges were made harder by the graphics, which is good.  In fact, it’s almost too good.  There were so many items in the puzzles that you get lost as what you are looking for and what you thought you saw already.  You can easily tell on some of the items that they do not belong there, but these are usually the ones that are not on your list.  You will also find that the graphics on the special challenge levels are pretty good as well.  Overall, they aren’t great, but they sure aren’t poor either.  So, the graphics on this game actually bump my rating of it up from a 1 to a 2.

There really is not much else to the game.  I did not purchase the full version after my 60 minutes of free play were up because, well frankly, I hated it.  The puzzles were almost to the point of being too hard, even for me, and the use of special items to find other items made it a bit frustrating when you had to go through each map to find those additional items for other maps.  Also, it seemed that the game makers forgot to put much detail in when they were doing the tutorial for the game.  I normally go through a tutorial of any new game I get, just to learn about the game and to have a basic idea of what I can expect and how to play.  This way, I have a better idea on how to play as well.  But in this case, the tutorial actually left me just as confused as if I had never read it.  You will also find that even after you pass the levels, there are still the levels that you have to pass in between to get up another level.  These are such a pain that I really got bored with them.  You pretty much have no instruction on any of them (although some are self-explanatory), and you have to stumble your way through them and try your best.  I even went as far as to let my kids try this game, as they have several of the “I Spy” books and love them.  Needless to say, they got bored and frustrated with this game as well.

Overall, if you love “I Spy” games, then you might give the trial of this one a shot, but otherwise I would not even bother downloading this one.  I give it a 2 out of 5, only because the graphics are pretty good.