Recent reviews by bbarker57

There isn't much to say that hasn't already been said. The Mystery P.I. series is among the earliest and more popular Hidden Object Only games. This particular edition asks the player to find 25 keys and casino chips in order to unlock "bonus" gameplay material. What the game doesn't tell you is that you score a million point bonus if you also manage to locate 25 fingerprints sprinkled about the game as well. All of this uber-casual gaming fun is, of course, in addition to the hidden objects in each area. One negative reviewer mentioned that the same areas are repeated several times as you play the game. While this is true, the list of objects does randomly change so you can't just zip through by remembering the first batch of object you found in the earlier scene.

HOG have become much more sophisticated over the years, with the Mystery Case Files franchise pioneering woven story threads and sometimes maddening puzzles that must be solved in order to complete the game. Fans of these "deeper" games number in the millions and sometimes it seems as if they could each play different games without any two folks playing the same one. There's a saying in the Southern United States... you can't swing a dead cat around without hitting a few of them. It definitely applies to this genre of casual games. BUT... if you have children that are just honing their nascent gaming skills and observational abilities, or older relatives that are new to computing (I know they're out there because I have several relatives that are just learning how to use computers) this series is the perfect introduction. Each of the Mystery P.I. games is educational, entertaining, and is an excellent tool to assist elderly folk beginning to deal with the onset of Alzheimers or any of the vile diseases that plague us in our golden years. I still drag these out of my "completed games" folders every now and again and tear through them just for the nostalgia value, so I definitely got my money's worth out of them!