This is one of my favorite games. It's pretty much a straight HOG with a few mini-games. The settings are gorgeous and the objects interesting even though not all from the historical period. I loved using the tools to find artifacts. I was caught up in the real mystery of finding the tomb--much better than an imaginary one such as where the witch hid the runes. I liked this better than other National Geographic games I have tried/played.

I was ready to buy this game but when I saw how they did the hidden objects - transparent and hard to see and oddly situated, I was discouraged and quit after five minutes. Backdrops are beautiful and intelligent story line but whatever company they had do the hidden objects screwed it up.

I did not like this game because the great "National Geographic" put its name on this deal. If they knew just how basic this game was, well it would have been a no go. I was just so let down by my own expectations with regard to The Big Name Title. This might be fun for grade school to early teens.

Pretty much all HOG. Gets boring after awhile just looking to HO. Not much of a storyline. I've played much better.

I expected more. Very poor game of Nat Geo. I?ve played others and when I saw this one is created by National Geographic I became excited because they usually have nice and pretty games and also instructives, but this one has only the history point that can be considered. The objects are too small and the shapes are not quite good. You keep looking and looking and looking and can?t find them. So, you use a hint, what a surprise, you?ve passed for the object several times but could not identify it. Almost no puzzles and mini games, strictly HOs. I didn?nt like and don?t recommend.

I was hoping with Nat Geo - as they do such good stuff in magazine and on TV - that it would be interesting both visually and story. I played the trial and lost interest half way through. I like HOGS and even though I am relatively new, I have been spoiled by the graphics of other games. This felt very flat. The hidden objects were all over the scene and very unrelated to anything (wooden clog, safety pin). In my short time of play I hit about 7 locations and half the scenes were repeats. But the music and sound effects were the most trying. Every time you find an object a bell tolls - very distracting - wasn't sure if I was in For Whom the Bell Tolls or It's a Wonderful Life. Hopefully they can do some collaborating with another studio and concept team and improve the games. I think there is a niche out there for this type of game if well done.

This is a different sort of HOG from a respected organization, National Geographic. Yes, it's got the cool music and everything. The storyline is quite straightforward--you're an archaeologist who is looking for clues to figure out where an ancient ruler is buried. The theory goes that the more screens you complete, the closer you get to the answer. There isn't much more to it than that and regrettably none of the gameplay really feels like it's moving you forward, backward, or any other direction really. You complete a screen, then pick which of a variety of other screens you'll finish. Finish a slew of them, and get a new slew of them. The audio's pretty good--it's not irritating at least--though the chime noise that plays when an object is successfully clicked got annoying very quickly. The video's not bad either, though the movies in the cutscenes reminded me (in a good way) of the documentaries teachers play to kids in public schools. The HOG screens themselves are photo-realistic type stuff for the most part, a nice and refreshing change from the stylized painting-style HOGs. I would love to see BigFish put out more of these "realistic" games, but they really need to be longer. From an HOG perspective, this game's pretty solid. The pictures are intriguing and fairly well-detailed; hints accumulate about as often as they seem like they should and there aren't penalties for using hints, and there don't seem to be any penalties for mis-clicks which is nice as some of the objects are really vaguely defined on the screens (you can see the objects' silhouettes for "free" but that's not a lot of help sometimes). There are next to no mini-games, which is fine as I don't like them anyway; the ones that are there are thematic and not frustrating or weird. Recommended for HOG players who don't like "puzzle adventure" games and for people who like more realistic/historical games. The game in total took me about 5 hours to complete (1 hour demo, plus 3-4 hours after purchase).