The Secret Order 4: Beyond Time

[h1]Я путешествую между мирами, Я – Эго, монада, душа! Мир плотный сейчас лежит перед нами, Мир тонкий закрыт пока![/h1] Ну что же, мы оставили Сару Пеннингтон, члена Тайного ордена Грифона, горевать у причала, наблюдая, как её корабль «Королевский грифон», тонет вместе с машиной времени и её возможностью вернуться домой. Машину удалось достать, но толку от неё было мало. Сара смогла только переместиться на территорию древнего Египта, где она встречает бога погребения и мумификации по имени Нуби! Ей удалось передать весточку своему отцу с просьбой прислать корабль в это время. Корабль прибыл, но из-за некоторых проблем путешествие окончилось во Вневременьи, застывшем во времени участке суши. Правил там жестокий диктатор, наловивший себе всяких великих людей. К сожалению, разработчики игр знают только нескольких великих, поэтому из игры в игру кочуют затасканные да Винчи, Тесла и Клеопатра. Все вместе, они помогут девушке вернуться домой. Достаточно интересный сюжет сопровождает обычный игровой процесс. Мы, как обычно бродим по окрестностям, собираем предметы в интересном «поиске предметов» и решаем загадки. Задачки скучноватые, виденные по сто раз, да ещё и повторяющиеся. По миру разбросаны разноцветные коллекционные фигурки, которые надо собирать для достижений. Особо рассказывать больше нечего, игра очень обычная. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3270292248 Хотя, вот, нарисована игра хорошо. Египет, джунгли, разные миры, всё проработано очень тщательно и красиво. Анимации Нубика, сюжетные ролики тоже качественно проработаны. Есть хорошая озвучка персонажей. Если бы не хороший сюжет и картинка, игра бы совсем не запомнилась. А так, хорошее продолжение неплохой серии, рекомендую.

Die weiterführende Story ist leider nicht gelungen und die Rätsel sind komisch gestaltet. Manche Minispiele will man am besten nur überspringen, es ist sehr unübersichtlich gestaltet, und den kleinen Helfer mit seinen Superkräften finde ich nicht gut umgesetzt. Unfortunately, the continuing story didn't work out and the puzzles are designed strangely. It's best to just skip some mini-games, it's very confusing, and I don't think the little helper with his superpowers is implemented well.

Same story still continue from 3. It is ok but it start get too long now. HOG is best when it have short stories to complete on one game. Ok music and nice art but this is not special.

Ehhhhhhhhhhhh........ It's not bad? I see other people struggled with bugs... Thankfully I somehow avoided them. Mmm otherwise... Griffin baby was replaced with Nubi, baby Anubis... While he was adorable n all... Why in the hell would a baby, especially THE LORD OF DEATH -> CARE ABOUT CLOTHES?! He... You know what? For the sake of modesty we'll say that he really needed his Egyptian leggings/skirt. The rest... Even more time sheets were messed up via time travel and messages and people and blah blah. But remember kids... No consequences for ruining/getting things your way! What a beautiful lesson. Okay it's not that annoying or rage inducing... It's just OKAY. Puzzles and mini-games ARE NOT HARD. There are some weird things you gotta figure out like "where does this item even go and what in the hell does it even do...?" But you can do it. Goodness. Achievements could be done in one playthrough. Even on higher difficulties. Stop messing with time/time travel people! You know what happens every time someone tries to do it! >.> :)... :>?

The story of [i]The Secret Order 4: Beyond Time[/i] continues from where the [url=steamcommunity.com/id/atisz2/recommended/437420]3rd part[/url] of the series ended: Sarah is trapped in the past, in the strange ancient-medieval looking land of Aeronheart and in order to get back to the present, she has to find help to rebuild the time-travelling ship, the Royal Griffin. The game skips the thrills of the 2nd game, but still manages to be entertaining, displaying marvellous looking locations and despite a rather pesky glitch. Bringing back the kingdom with the weird ancient-medieval aesthetics and a pinch of renaissance from the previous part is both a good and a bad thing: good because of consistence and bad because of how this world seems to be in sharp contrast to the relatable setting of [url=steamcommunity.com/id/atisz2/recommended/399890/]The Secret Order 2: Masked Intent[/url]. After a villain makes an extremely short appearance in the Egyptian (!) scene - which we visit shortly after the medieval landscape - the developers must have felt the need to take a path back to the original concept somehow and so we get to visit an exotic-looking South-American jungle (which serves as a central area from where we can discover 3 different realms), similar to the ancient land from the original, where we meet several famous individuals, such as Leonardo da Vinci, Tesla and Cleopatra (just 'Cleo' simply) along with some conquistadors, who serve as the bad guys. This is the general example of less would have been more. Fortunately the amount of puzzles and minigames make up for this all-in-one approach: knot-, rotating- and lots of sliding puzzles, along with interactive storytelling. The amount of hidden object scenes is decent, there's practically no backtracking and item use is relatively coherent with a few exceptions, such as the part where we have to feed a bird an entire loaf of bread. There was also a part where adjusting an iron rod to pry open a crystal from the wall took some unusual effort, which seemed like an engine related issue. We get a helper this time as well, just like in the previous parts: the baby version of Anubis, 'Nubi', who is more than handy, since he can crawl into small areas, cast lightning (useful to set something on fire mostly - usually indicated by a lightning icon nearby), levitate objects made of obsidian and become invisible. There are also 3 types of collectibles we have to search for: jaguar, crocodile and eagle shaped Aztec masks. The bonus chapter continues directly from where the main story ended where we have to travel into the Underworld and help Anubis reclaim his throne from a demon. It's similarly high quality (these additional adventures usually use low-quality graphics and are cheaply done) and its dark, eerie locations are the opposite of the lush jungles of the main game. I liked how we have to pay Chairon 3x to cross the River Styx back and forth, but the time-consuming trial & error type puzzles at the end were a major letdown and sort of ruined it. The mentioned glitch - instructions disappearing when interacting the elements in the environment or just clicking while a text is active - is constantly present, thus rather annoying and can only be fixed by leaving and reentering the given area in order to make these texts reappear again. Or we can wait until the displayed text disappears by itself without clicking, in which case this issue never actually emerges, however that way the game takes quite a bit longer... Graphics are great for a hidden object game and both the jungle and underworld locations look marvellous. Music and sound effects are of high quality, the crackling noises resulting from low-quality sounds from the previous parts are now gone. I really loved how due to zooming in at certain locations sound effects, like the howling of the wind became louder. One of the supporting characters, Harriet was voiced by the same person as our heroine :/ [i]The Secret Order 4: Beyond Time[/i] doesn't offer the thrills of the amazing 2nd part: this entire part is about us getting back to the present. The beautiful looking landscapes still manage to make the game appealing despite this and the mentioned bug. While I'd still recommend playing it, it's clearly the weakest entry in the series so far. PROS + lots of puzzles and enjoyable hidden object scenes + great sounds in general + multifunctional helper + offers many beautiful locations... CONS - ... way too many as a matter of fact - fails to be thrilling - disappearing text bug RATING 6/10

Looking at the discussions, they're all 1-2 years old. They describe a bug where you can't complete the minigame puzzle without skipping bc the Emerald piece won't move, and there's a screen shot showing how path doesn't align with the cogwheel. My screen looked exactly like that screen shot and so I held my breath. I didn't get the bug, I didn't have to troubleshoot anything, my game didn't softlock, I didn't have to use any hints or skips. I have a ~6 yo laptop. 1080p resolution (played on full screen), just using the basic motherboard intel GPU. I didn't experience any misaligned text w any puzzles. (I have not done the bonus game, but I can skip and hint w that and get the full 100%). The gameplay is annoying w the magnifying glass being everywhere and it doesn't zoom on anything, just may give you a comment from Sarah (the MC). Which half the time she will comment, sometimes the text rapidly goes away. I thought my mouse was double-clicking, but other users have described it, so I'm guessing it's a 'feature' for this particular game. So ya, it's buggy, I had to be patient w navigating through what the MC might have been trying to hint at. Having played countless of these, I actually enjoyed the puzzles and HOP scenes. I thought it was challenging than most, but adequate bc I don't think you'll need a guide. Def recommend on sale (complete your bundle) bc it should be dirt cheap Edit: Finished the bonus chapter, and it was much more polished in regards to the magnifying glass being ever present with nothing happening. Didn't experience that 'glitch' where you light candles in a HOP scene and it doesn't actually illuminate the area. Didn't use any skips or hints, so overall everything essentially worked as intended

Игра продолжает сюжетную линию по возвращению ГГ из глубин фэнтезийного прошлого в реальность. По прежнему трудности пути преодолеваются решением головоломок по комбинации предметов и сбору пазлов. Загадки в сравнении с предыдущими частями достаточно простые, убрали "фирменный" поиск предметов. Игра проходится в спокойном ритме, понравится любителям собирать пазлы без особого напряга.

A decent Artifex Mundi hidden object game.

Kolejny HOG od Artifexu (a przynajmniej przez niego wydany) - to dalej "to samo". Jak podobały się poprzednie gry, to ta też podejdzie. Tyle że ten jest słabszy niż reszta. Literówek wprawdzie jest mało, tu się też pierwszy raz spotkałem z dostosowywaniem poziomu trudności (ale też przestałem grać we wszystkie HOGi według daty wydania, to nie wiem czy to pierwszy raz), co jest na plus. Niestety, są też duże minusy. Raz, że teksty po kliknięciu na coś często przestawały mi się wyświetlać, co mocno utrudnia grę i nigdy wcześniej mi się nie zdarzyło - zwyczajnie zepsute. Dwa, że jest mniej typowych plansz z ukrytymi obiektami, a w zamian doszły zadania typu "znajdź na ekranie 1 rzecz, ale wcześniej znajdź coś przypadkowego, czego użyjesz tam, by otworzyć to, by... itd." - w pewnym sensie to samo, tylko gorsze, bo trzeba po kolei i jest zgadywanka, bo na starcie nie wiesz, czego szukasz. No i przypomina to, co się robi poza tymi scenami. Pograć się da, to dalej ledwie jeden wieczór i koniec, ale na tle reszty jest słabiej, stąd łapa w dół.

Surprisingly buggy for a fairly simple game. There are plenty of other HOGs that run better - I suggest skipping this one.