What a refreshing change from our usual fare - a game that doesn't hold your hand and actually makes you think. This is an Adventure-HOG, with not a lot of HOG scenes thrown in. The graphics are just beautiful, in some places even breathtaking. There is a full-screen/windowed option, but no option to turn off the custom cursor. The gameplay itself is deliciously challenging, but not to the point of being impossible or too frustrating to play. The HINT meter refills slowly, but you can also gain hints by collecting ancient coins. I always enjoy the extra challenge of finding extra items, though I did try not to use the hints The story is straightforward - you go on an expedition to find the lost crystal skulls. I think that the fact that you find three skulls during the course of the game should say something for the credibility of the story. Don't get me wrong, the gameplay is beautifully done, but you will have to suspend disbelief in places in order to enjoy the game. The chapters are nice and long, gameplay very enjoyable, graphics superb, music and voiceovers well done and story immersive (despite being a bit hard to believe). Excellent game, I enjoyed every bit of it!

I will be purchasing based only on a segment of demo play. Even the short time I played was enough to allow me to be confident I want it in my games collection as it is exceptionally well done, despite some of the lower marks in the scoring thus far as I'm posting. The graphics are gorgeous and thoughtful, music/sound appropriate to the setting w/o being intrusive, and the story grabbed me and lured me on. Love the way it mixes a bit of average H0G with a tried and true adventure type-story which allows the player the initiative to move forward without too much handholding (aka it will be challenging and interesting). I'd say a VERY nice game for a $6.99 price tag, thanks BFG! Looking forward to playing the entire game. :)

Graphics were beautiful, and many times I was simply enjoying the scenery rather than playing the game itself. The music also went very well with the setting. There were a lot of thinkings and I found the game challenging but very enjoyable at the same time. I hope there will be another game like this in the near future. I definitely recommend this game.

I was playing this game without too many expectations but I was wrong. The storyline and graphics hook me up to finish the game in one seating! I have hours of endless fun. The puzzles where different to the ones I played before and I even have to look the walkthrough help once.

This is one of the most challenging games I have played and it doesn't get old. The only problem I had with it is it will not play in full screen. The windowed screen plays great and the items in HOS are not real difficult to find. I love the adventure and colors in all the chapters. It is a good mixture of different types of games in each chapter. It is fairly long and that is another plus in my book. I highly recommend this game.

This is a very fun game. Keeps my interest . have played this several times and still not board wit it.

There is nothing terribly wrong with this game, but there is nothing that stands out about it either. The graphics look fairly nice, especially the changing sunlight effects. There's a good number of hidden object scenes and some welcome variations like finding X parts of an item in a location (e.g. scraps of paper) and a spot the difference where the two images are mirrored. There's also a good variety of puzzles, although nothing too original or tough. I ended up using the walkthrough more often than I usually do, not because it was a hard game, but because I don't really like mousing all over to the screen to find small inventory items. The story is nothing special, but I like the way they dropped little clues to the mystery throughout the game. Overall, every aspect of this game was pretty decent, but it was completely unmemorable. Nothing stands out enough for me to recommend this game when there's so many other better HOGs out there.

This was somewhat entertaining, but I didn't really get into the theme. It was substandard for what I have come to expect from Big Fish, but guess you can't always hit a home run.

I wanted to like this game. The description makes it sound like the player will start an amazing journey. I think the only positive comment I can make is that the graphics were well done. I like when game designers add some voice acting to the games, adds some more charm. Unfortunately, in this game, the designers did not utilize a voice actor for the "the player" which feels extremely awkward in the gameplay. A character will speak with subtiles, and then the player's character speaks, except it is silent with just the subtitles. I think that really damages the flow of the games. Onto the gameplay itself. FRUSTRATING. Hidden objects are very hidden in some cases. At least an ample amount of hints are available by collecting coins. Puzzles to advance in the game are not very intuative. The clues to keep the gameflow going are just not there, and without the assistance of a walkthrough to help guide a player as to what to do next, this game would just seem like it dead ends at points. A diary would also have assisted with the gameplay. Some of the puzzles depend on scenes the player previously visited, so the player either needs to sketch out what something looked like to recreate it, or have photographic memory. This would not be to bad except for having to move back and forth between locations that are 3 or more scenes apart multiple times to fix one little detail that is hard enough to see in the original picture...... Very frustrating. Also, the story did not seem to work well at all for me. The story unfolded way too quickly, with an ending just designed to tie up loose ends more than anything else. I guess, to me at least, this seems like a game that was close to 80% completed. While there are no bugs, the game flow and additional functionality other games have in this genre just is not there. Some more polish, and this could have been a great game.

Having finished the demo which took me to the beginning of Chapter 2 & I have decided that this is a no buy for me. The story did not excite my interest & I really disliked the Tom character, why bother having him in the game as he doesn?t do anything except speak, which is odd as the main character is only in subtitles. The graphics were crisp & clear & the artists on this game have done a lovely job although the music could use some work. The hidden object scenes had interactive items which was enjoyable & the puzzles were difficult & made me think, normally all this would make a game a buy but the annoyances outweighed the enjoyable parts. The hint system is pretty useless as it highlights objects that you already know need action of some sort, it recharges very very slowly. You can get extra hints by finding the coins that are scattered throughout the scenes. The time lag between screens is annoying as is the black screen with the word ?walking? at the bottom. In order to use an item from your inventory you have to put it in exactly the right place, I lost count of the times I had to keep trying to use an object before it was finally placed in the scene. There are no options to change the screen size (it was a window on my widescreen) or difficulty of play although as the game is pretty hard that is not a problem.