Well it is not bad, in that I completed it and didn't feel ripped off, there weren't any technical issues. However there are many other similar and better games on Steam that I wouldn't recommend this one unless you are starting to exhaust Steam's catalogue of hidden object games.

It is not scary, there are a couple of jump scares but they don't really affect the scariness of the game. However I did feel uncomfortable playing this game for the following reasons.

The art work in general is very good. However the character animation during dialogue is really uncanny as it is just large blinking eyes and in the group scene at the beginning strange head tilts.

The characters motivation is a bit off, you play as the newest member of the paranormal investigation group, but you are given all of the equipment during the game and sent off to do almost all of the work, so you end up wanting to tell the other members of the team to get up of their backsides and do something. I would understand if you were split from the group or there was some story dynamic to make you do it, but there isn’t. An early example is that you have to answer the phone in the back of the car on the way there, even though you are in the front passenger seat and there are four people in the back who are nearer the phone, and are more likely to know the person on the other end. Assembling an electrical item with the technical expert next to you, because he cannot be bothered? It gets worse.

Hidden Object Scenes, not too difficult to implement you would think, but these are the most annoying I have ever played. Using synonyms is ok, half hiding objects are ok, but most of the scenes have objects which require multiple actions to find. Which is fine but there are a lot of them. I should mention that the hidden objects appear to be the same in subsequent play throughs. Normally I would expect a scene to have 12-15 hidden objects selected out of database of a greater number of possible objects, sometimes they always include a particular object needed to advance the plot, but there is usually some variation, in this game there isn't any. This is made worse because even when you know two objects work together clicking on one with the other is difficult due to the detection of the game engine, if often doesn’t detect the click unless you click a certain part of the object but this seems to vary, and not in a predictable or intelligent way.

The first hidden object scene contains 4 objects out of 12 which require multiple actions; the highest appears to be 6 out of 12. Some of the solutions are nonsensical. It is almost as bad as the famous puzzle in one of the Gabriel Knight games that requires you to place tape over a hole in a fence to chase a cat through, such that hair is stuck to the tape, which you then use to make a fake moustache to disguise yourself as a character that doesn’t have a moustache.

This followed through into the other puzzles, melt that substance with a melting point over 1000 degrees C on a campfire ok. Go to great lengths to get a source of light, even though there is an electric work light only feet away etc.

Gameplay aside I felt uncomfortable playing the game for three main reasons.

1) The game requires you to vandalise and steal items during you investigation at times when there is no urgency. If the game required me to steal a first aid kit to help someone who was dying, I would say fair enough, or break a car window to retrieve a phone to call for the police, well they can just bill me for the window.

However the game requires me to steal and cause damage at times in the game when as far as the group is concerned, no one is in immediate danger, or the only reason to break the law is for the benefit of our investigation. Randomly destroy and damage Native American artefacts for no reason because later on you will just happen to need them, take whatever you want even though the owners are not far away, because well who cares.

2) Health and safety, running into a burning building to rescue someone, dangerous but necessary. But don't worry; you won’t be doing anything like that.

Instead:

Instead thrill in the danger of lighting candles so you can see to fill a gas tank, because someone cannot be bothered to go back to the car and get a torch.

Damage a building water supply and leave it leaking in a room with the electricity switch on, to clean a mirror to see something in the reflection which you would see by just turning around.

3) Native Americans, I don't know much about Native American culture, however it is featured and plays a prominent part of the game. But it all seems very stereotypical, dream catchers - check, Indians wearing fringed buckskin - check, big head dresses - check, totem poles - check. Everything from old cowboy films before laws were brought in to stop white people in makeup playing Native Americans - check. I doubt that all of the Native American symbolism used is genuine, and even with the genuine items, I doubt that any one nation included all of these elements. It would have been less of a problem in a more fantastic setting, but the associated TV show is delivered as a documentary, and the game is set in a real world setting. It made me cringe and I am a white Englishman, so I expect it would really upset actual Native Americans. I just felt that it was all a bit racist, and apart from holding my hand up and saying "How", it couldn't have gotten anymore unpleasant.

So I would in closing say, the game is not terrible, but almost all of the hidden object games on Steam are better. It is really only for fans of the TV show. Go play something by Artifex Mundi (Developed not just distributed by.) and you will have a better experience for a bit less money.

"The scariest bit was his face"

My attention was brought to this game while it was still trying to get through Steam Greenlight and was offering free keys to users willing to vote. Now the game is up, and while me and many other users are still awaiting the promised keys, this game appeared in a bundle, so I've picked it up there so I can play and review the game for all those who are still waiting.

Story
As someone who doesn't watch television, my knowledge of this was minimal until I looked it up for my review. The knowledge that the series was supposed to be reality TV just makes this so much worse. Anyway, this game has the team, along with you, a new guy who doesn't receive a name, go to see someone about some recently strangeness at the site of a Civil War battle. This really was a weak point of the game, and given I know now of the 'reality TV' series, I can only face palm at the thought that it would be so poor as well.

Presentation
Expressionless faces and emotionless voices. This was so bad. The characters from the TV show have some poor caricatures, most of which don't closely match the original characters. Still, they aren't so bad you couldn't match them to a photo. The fact that the faces are never changing, no matter the current events, well, that is less forgivable. The main character just has a creepy stare that never changes through the game, and the rest aren't much better. I've been informed that the voice acting isn't from the original actors either, which doesn't bother me as I've never watched it, but the poor quality of it certainly does. Little emotion to it, and bad all round.

At least once you ignore the characters, the rest is at the expected level of quality for a hidden objects games. Items are clear, but don't stand out, which is what you would want from the genre. Nothing special to mention, but no more complaints from this section.

Controls
Purely point and click with the mouse. The only problem here was picking up an item to use on the same screen, as where you would expect the pointer to be isn't always correct, resulting in trying to guess the correct positioning to continue on.

Gameplay
With a hidden object game, there isn't a lot to the gameplay. A number of rooms to look through, finding hidden object puzzles, logic puzzles and items for solving the logic puzzles. In two of these, the game is fine. Hidden object puzzles went as expected, even if it doesn't bring anything special to the table. Locating items for the other puzzles is also simple enough.

The logic puzzles, here there are some more problems to add to the list of flaws. Some of these are quite alright, while some of them seem to have no logic to them, just attempting everything until it works. One early puzzle was to get the electricity working by replacing fuses. You have several empty slots and several coloured fuses. The slots weren't marked in any way that I could see, you just tried each fuse until a small light lit up, then moved to the next. That isn't any sort of puzzle, just random guessing. If there was a logical solution, it wasn't visible to me. There were several others handled just as poorly.

Lifespan
This game is quite short, being under 5 hours to beat both the original campaign and the bonus content unlocked after that, though that is an acceptable length for the genre. There are also 20 achievements, but most if not all will be unlocked the first time around. There are some difficulty settings but this only effects what level of hints you will receive during the game, something I never used myself. Chances are you won't bother with this game once you have completed it the first time.

Closing
Overall, this game really isn't worth a purchase, at least not at the asking price. There are many better games available capable of testing both your eyes and your mind, without inflicting the problems mentioned.

4 / 10

I'm gonna be completely honest here, I hated this game, and this is coming from someone who enjoys hidden object games quite a bit. This review will be based on the game's merits regardless of the fact that I received it free, as I think that would be unfair to anyone looking to purchase it.

Let me first state that I am not a fan of the premise...at...all. I've never watched the show, but even so, the whole paranormal investigator thing is so hokey and contrived that it right off the bat turned me off. Despite the story, I was willing to give the game a chance focusing on the gameplay; it's not as if HOGs have the greatest narratives in gaming anyway, and it's usually the artwork, atmosphere and gameplay that keeps me entertained.

In all honesty, the artwork is pretty decent, at least the non-character graphics. They're pretty much par for the course in the genre and are pleasant enough to look at. The character models though, boy...again, I haven't watched the show, but I found the characters' emotionless stares far more creepy than anything the ghosts toss at you. And the somewhat monotone voice acting doesn't help them either.

The gameplay in the adventure portions was average, nothing I haven't seen before. The puzzles were OK, again, nothing I haven't seen before, but mildly stimulating all the same. The hidden object scenes, though, I grit my teeth even thinking about them. It's kind of hard to mess these up, but they managed to do it here. For one, there are way too many multi-action items; 2-3 per scene is usually pretty good, but later in the game nearly half of the items in each scene require 2-3 steps to clear. Ok, no big deal...but some of the actions are so illogical, I don't know how they expected people to figure them out without either clicking on everything like crazy or taking the easy route and using the help button, which I usually avoid at all costs but used more times than I can count because I just didn't have to patience for this game. Other items were what I would consider deceptively hidden, which is something I will always criticize as an artificial means of adding difficulty. The best hidden object scenes utilize clever synonyms and unique word usage to add difficulty as well as help improve vocabulary, but that's rarely the case here. And I haven't even mentioned the buggy cursor that wouldn't select/pick up certain items without clicking 20+ times trying to find the right pixel to trigger...

Bottom line, the gameplay was not enough to make up for the stinker of a premise/story. Folks, there are a LOT better hidden object games out there to spend your money on. I would advise avoiding this one unless you're a rabid fan of the TV show and need a fix or end up getting it in a bundle.

I didn't realize this was a reality television show until I started to google screenshots, but that explains a lot. It explains the uncanny valley character models, the really lackluster voice acting, and why there were so many characters. I was so confused by the huge cast, unable to really keep them apart.

This also explains why each time you open the game, there's a cut scene that you have to skip rather than it taking you to the main menu right away where it explains who Ryan Buell is.

Despite the hilarity of how far into the uncanny valley this game can go and some absolute fails in emoting, I didn't enjoy the game. Originally, it felt like the puzzles were clever enough and practical enough, but I began to feel like it was a slog. If the game had been half the length, I probably would have loved it and shouted its praises to the world. But as we got further in, I disliked the protagonists more, I disliked the story more, and trying to pick out objects in all these dimly lit backgrounds was beginning to give me a headache.

Buy when it's on sale. I paid 3 bucks for it which sounded about right. If I had paid full price, I would have been really frustrated.

Let me begin by establishing that I didn't go into this expecting an amazing experience; I knew this was a cash-grab game, but since it came free with a bundle I'd purchased and I'm a point-and-click fan, I decided to give it a go. Besides, I typically enjoy bad games; sometimes they can be fun for the wrong reasons, and even if they're not very successful they can still be charming. Unfortunately, Paranormal State: Poison Spring isn't enjoyable, fun, successful, OR charming.

When it comes to point-and-click games, there are two major rules that are critical to a game being playable and/or enjoyable, and this game violates both. Rule #1, by far, is that you HAVE to keep in mind what sort of tasks are meant to go on in a location BEFORE you design that location. That means that if you have a scene that takes place in a basement, and one of the necessary puzzle items in said basement is a piece of cloth, do not design the area with extraneous pieces of cloth lying around. I ended up stuck in this location for a ridiculous amount of time because I found several other items that could very well have performed the task of cleaning a dirty mirror -- one of which was not only a suitable cloth but was also ANIMATED and therefor drawing extra attention to itself -- but none of them were clickable because they weren't the 'right' cloth. This leaves the player feeling cheated and frustrated.

The other major rule of point-and-click games is that it's not enough to make a puzzle item capable of doing the job it's been assigned; it needs to be the logical conclusion TO use that item for the job it's been assigned. Paranormal State contains a scene where a trap door opens in a ceiling and reveals the end of a ladder, and when one tries to click on it, the game says it's out of reach. However, this scene takes place in the middle of a large dining area, with lots and lots of chairs surrounding the player. Naturally, the first inclination is to grab a chair for an extra boost.... Buuut no, the game won't allow this. Instead, the player must leave the building, backtrack down a path, go to a different building, head around back, enter the building's storage shed, retrieve a piking hook (because THAT'S the first thing I'd think of to solve this puzzle), and return to the original location to pull the ladder down with the hook. Using this item miiiiight've been more understandable if it was ensured to be in the player's inventory before they arrived at the trap door location, but having been there without it, I had no reason whatsoever to use anything other than the hoard of chairs within arm's reach. It was just busy work to pad out the game.

All in all, I guess it was... kiiind of okay, given that I didn't pay for it? If you get this game for free, I guess it's worth taking a peek if you don't mind wasting your time, but honestly there are far better games out there to waste your time with. I guess more than anything I don't recommend buying it. If you get it for free, eh, then it's whatever, but if you actually trade currency for it you're going to be disappointed.

Long grueling and boring story line. Buggy when it comes to lining up objects. This is definitely one of the worst Hidden Object games I ever played. Also according to the abc7 website, Ryan Daniel Buell, 34, is facing two felony charges related to theft and stolen property. YIKES!!!

The game centers around "you" joining the Paranormal Research Society as a new recruit, and all-around mule. An historic park is trouble from some sort of paranormal activity, and you will be doing all of the work for PRS and the park to make it end. Beware of ghosts and demons, and poor spoops.

Pros: For a Hidden Object Game, this has passable mini games and logical solutions. Someone was trying to write a story, rather than just slap elements together to make scares. There is also the best (and worst) expression of dismay I have ever seen in a "horror" game, and it happens TWICE.

Cons: The first time around, you will use the Hint button more than a few times, and skip a mini game out of boredom or frustration. The Hidden Object scenes can be particularly precise, meaning you can click the same object in four different places before it decides to be the one you were looking for. You will also probably miss the collectibles in your desperation to get some progress. This is because the game frequently fails to give helpful clues in description texts even in the easiest game mode. Fortunately for anyone who wants to play it over, literally nothing changes: mini game solutions are all the same; so are the objects to be found hidden object scenes. Unfortunately, that means it is mind-numbing to play through again more than once to finish the achievements.

Part of the problem is while the game has beautifully done matte sets, everything else is well below average, even for the year it was released. Animation is poor, or non-existent, and the jump scares just aren't scary. Clickable objects range between blended into the background so much you would never notice them without prior knowledge, and eyesore. What you can use or interact with is denoted by a tiny cursor changing, whose color schemes is so close to each other, and the background colors, you are likely to glance over it. Gameplay is finicky as a result, and the lack of fast travel wears on the player through each repetition of six screens to get to the one screen that will allow you to go through four more screens. Not even the music or the sound is well done, something that is a must for atmosphere.

The story might be a story (in that it has a vague plot) but the characters, voice-acting, and models are all terrible. Eilfie in particular resides in the Uncanny Valley when you are given a close-up of her face. There is a lack of care for expression in both the modeling and the delivery of dialogue. Further, the story itself has a patchwork feel with holes all around. It also heavily invokes one of the most racist tropes in the Amerian ghost story: "Native American spirits angry about white folks and that means DEMONS." Embarrassingly, it then tries to have authenticity by calling on Lorraine Warren, who might be famous or infamous (depending on your views), but fails to have her even act for the game, and shows none of her supposed abilties. In fact, other than your character, no one appears to do any work- this team definitely has an "i" in it, or more aptly, a "you." This weakens the story further, since you apparently know nothing about ghosts, demons, or even how to operate an EMF meter. The other characters show no concern or motivation unless it is about making you do the next task, although to be fair to most members of the "team," only one of them gets any real screen time, compared to all the fictional people (and ghosts) and even Lorraine Warren.

TL;DR: This game is a slodge, and best bought heavily discounted.

Bad game compared with other hidden object games out there. The story is very boring and the detection of the mouse/pointer over the object in the puzzles is terrible, and also it loads more often than other games of the same genre. Overall I can say is a null game, that's it.

What the others said: bad voices, bad characters graphics, terrible 'Hot spot' in some scenes where clicking becomes awful, ridiculous teen story filled with clichés, the other characters that do... nothing. I'll add bad sfx to the list, way too much backtracking, some bad translations for the objects lists (still acceptable though) and you're often wondering where to go next since walking back & forth is the main gameplay; it leaves you dizzy lol. Didn't like the 'find the wolf' thing as it's badly done: a tiny puppy statue seems really silly, I'm still missing 2 wolves and there's a statue that only gives me a text 'That's a wolf statue!' instead of validating the find...
What I liked though are the HOG scenes graphics and the actions to do in it, quite original and IMO all logical, the occasional WTF was solved with the hint button. The problem came from the clicking zones, quite fiddly. The locations graphics are also gorgeous.

TLDR Summary: Badly done, it feels unfinished. They should have tested it out more.

SDL Error box popped up and it will not let the game open . I contacted Legacy Games and they told me this is for Steam to fix . I do not recommend this game for this reason .