Hidden Expedition: Amazon

Meh. 95% HO. Puzzles don't give much, if any clue what you're supposed to do. Figuring them out gave me a headache.

Just like with [i]Titanic[/i] and [i]Everest[/i], other Steam reviews expressed concerns that this port of [i]Hidden Expedition: Amazon[/i] wouldn't open in full screen even on a high end PC, but thankfully I never encountered that issue. These three early games in the series will not open if you don't allow them to make changes to your computer so they can automatically adjust your screen resolution for you. Unfortunately, this one in particular happens to be the clunkiest of the trio, as you will have to manually readjust the resolution to your preferred default setting after closing the game. If any of that makes you uncomfortable, you may want to pass up on adding this third installment of the [i]Hidden Expedition[/i] series to your collection! Furthermore, what I had initially attributed to a resolution issue is actually a feature and not a bug. Visibility of hidden items is limited in order to raise the difficulty level of the game. Some are blurry, some blend in with the backgrounds, and some are silhouettes. While it doesn't make the game unplayable, it may cause frustration, especially when looking for the hint beetles in the Beetle Temple where everything is beetle but wrong. (I can't tell you how many times I clicked on what I thought was a hint bug and it was actually just part of the temple motif. At least the penalty for misclicking is less of an obstacle than in the previous games.) What I find most fascinating about the progression of this series is the way that this game is a rudimentary version of what the series and genre would eventually become. You can see it still figuring itself out - removing some features (such as voiceovers and secret items) that would eventually come back in later games and further improving/expanding on features that were already there (such as the use of puzzles and cutscenes to tell a story) - but the elements are falling into place. Compared to the first two games, [i]Amazon[/i] is a lot heavier on the plot despite being primarily focused on its hidden object scenes. At every turn, a new piece of story is delivered to the player and NPCs pop up frequently with something to say. The gameplay is still mostly intuitive, but the game will notify you of the rules and features when it appears that you are stuck (ie. you take too long to complete the tutorial scene or accidentally trigger a penalty) just in case you are unfamiliar with the genre. The plethora of hidden object scenes and the slightly more interactive adventure themed gameplay (think point-and-click adventure style) are great compared to some of the puzzles interspersed throughout the levels. While creative, they can be a bit confusing to understand at first glance, especially when not enough information is given to adequately explain the task. Sometimes clicking the hint button offers more instruction and sometimes it starts solving the puzzle for you without any indication of why or how. The good news is that, if you're not interested in the puzzles at all or if they prove to be too difficult, you can just keep clicking the hint button until it skips the puzzle entirely. Although I appreciate the innovation and consideration for different play styles, I still vastly prefer the distinction between a hint button and a skip button that would soon become a staple of the genre. And now, unfortunately, there is an elephant in this rainforest that we can no longer avoid addressing. The story seems to want to take an 8th Wonder of the World (a la Hanging Gardens of Babylon) approach to the search for the Beetle Temple and a decent amount of quirky humor was put into it, but it ends up taking a hard turn into exoticism and then barrels straight into the white savior trope. The Professor’s unsavory comments and doodles about the locals coupled with some stereotypical interpretations of indigenous people leave a bad taste behind as you try to find some semblance of joy in navigating the gameplay of this fast-paced adventure. It’s a real shame that the educational aspect of the series was put on hold for this. At the end of the day, I [i]really[/i] can't recommend the game for the racism in the plot - surely, Big Fish Games had more resources available to them than [b]that[/b] - but it does stand up as a fascinating relic of the hidden object genre's transitional period, so I will only very cautiously recommend it to longtime fans who are interested in experiencing the gameplay progression like I was. Wait for a sale and buy it in the bundle if you can.

amazing

Para os que como eu gostam dos jogos do tipo "objetos escondidos", é um ótimo jogo. A instalação ocorreu normalmente e depois de instalado, houve um problema pois o jogo não assumia a tela cheia e ficava somente no modo janela, impedindo o jogador de localizar os objetos escondidos no jogo. Vários métodos para colocar o jogo em tela cheia foram tentados, sem sucesso. O jogo em si vale a pena, porém, este problema isolado desabonou o jogo. Como sempre, a Steam não me deixou na mão e foi feito o reembolso imediatamente depois que o problema foi relatado e apurado. Obrigado Steam.

Wife and I both loved this game within the series. The puzzle are very challenging, graphics was great. Game play we even better

If you like hidden object games this is fun, it could have better definition but it's ok.

Very glitchy and could not get it to go fullscreen to actually see the objects (tried to fix in options and tried uninstalling and re-installing)