sounds GREAT I have downloaded the demo and will play it tomorrow Thank You

What is it with making hidden object games simpler these days?

First off- the story and graphics are very good. Thumbs up there.

The game play is a total thumbs down for me. It is one thing being given a picture or silhouette of an item as a hint or if you are looking for parts to make up the whole- but having pictures to find objects that are not even hidden anyway is a big yawn in my books. No fun or challenge there at all.

Mini games were not too bad but also nothing that required too much thinking or time to complete.

From the walkthrough I was halfway through at end of trial and looks like just more of the same to come.

This game is a disappointment as it has very good potential. I was just going through the motion of clicking on the objects to find out what was happening in the story.

I Have just finished the i hour trial, so far not too many puzzles and all similar to before nothing realy different, so far an okay game but one to forget easy, too many great ones before, but an okayhidden object game very similar to others nothing special so far hits me.


Cheers
lineck

This game seems to find me in a moment of introspection - it is interesting to me how one encounters something new, embraces and enjoys it, wants more, gets more, becomes familiar, becomes bored... When Interactive Hidden Object Games (that is HOGs with Adventure Game sytle Inventory Puzzles) first made the scene I could *not* get enough. They were few and far between but slowly started appearing with more frequency and quickly replaced then overtook my love of the standard Hidden Object fare. Now they are pretty common place and I seem to be enjoying them less and less. The Mystery of the Mary Celeste seems to be a perfect example of this.

Granted this game is a very simple IHOG. True, amongst the Hidden Objects for which you search are inventory items to use in a puzzle, but the puzzles require no real thought. Yes, you have the logic to work out as to which of the found things will solve what's at hand, but one can also just do trial and error if first guesses don't prove correct. The Mini-Games are also simple and nothing new. But still I'm quite convinced if this game had come out, say, prior to RTR or even HE: Amazon I would have gone nuts for it. Now... *eh*

Solid game, on the easy side for me, just a couple hints used during demo and then because I wanted to move on more than I had really looked terribly hard. Puzzles easy peasy. Minis I encountered 4 in the demo time, 2 untangle the ropes type where none may cross (I find these enjoyable but very easy) and connect two pipes together from pieces (mildly challening) and a connect electric flow (this was challenging only because I did not quite understand the directions, once sussed I flew thru it). I am well into Chapter 5 in the one hour demo and there are only 8 chapters. Since 1 -5 did not become more difficult as they went along I imagine the difficulty will not change for the last 3, meaning I would probably get no more than 2 hours of play. That's ok for something really special (IMO of course) but for something just all right it's hardly a bargain.

So at the end of the day it's a very standard IHOG with good graphics, an interesting story (but not compelling enough to buy for that alone) easy game play and ok minis. It's going in my "desperate for an IHOG" pile for a rainy day, but it would have to be pouring.

Thanks for your "to the point" review covegril & lineck. I pretty much felt the same way. I only played about 30 minutes of the demo and left out of bordom. I did not come across any mini games or puzzles yet.

Meh....

Like Poodlebear I found this to be pretty standard IHOG (interesting acronym PB, is that original to you? I haven't run across it before). The graphics were nice, though a little dark in some cases. The music I found annoying enough that I turned it way down within minutes; I left it on a bit in case sounds proved to be relevant to the gameplay, but that didn't seem to be the case.

I rather liked the "place the objects in the circles" format of puzzle solving, although as PB says, it does mean that simple trial and error will get you the solution if you don't feel like taxing your brain even minimally.

I did find the dialogue a bit irritating, and the internal logic of the story line seemed to be kind of slapdash. (At one point early in the game Mary declares she will get off the boat even if she has to swim to shore; later on she laments her inability to swim - sloppy, IMO.)

I used an average of one hint per scene, more to move along than through any real need. For the most part the objects were in plain view. When they weren't, there was a highlighted location to look in. I did like that when all objects in a highlighted location were found the game automatically returned you to the main scene. Time wasn't wasted looking for things that weren't there.

In the hour demo I was able to get almost all of the way through Chapter 5 (of 8). As was mentioned above, if this game had come out a couple of years ago I would be all over it I think, but now....there's just not any compelling reason to buy. I'm trying to save my credits for the upcoming MCF, HE, Azada and the very intriguing DRAWN (want to give us any hints what that will be like Picman?). I did break down and buy G.H.O.S.T. Chronicles: Phantom of the Renaissance Faire a couple of days ago - there's a game that, although a bit on the short side, was different enough to be worth a credit. Wish I could say the same about this game, but all in all, it's just not a keeper.

people are saying showing and finding the full iteam is to easy. I find it much better then aimlessly clicking for parts you cannot see like in Magic Encyclopedia: Moon Light I would reccomend this game over Magic Encyclopedia: Moon Light

I'm not sure this even qualifies as an IHOG. To me, an IHOG is when you collect items which go into your inventory for later use. In this game, you use items immediately and on the same page . To me it's just a standard HOG.

Big start and yet nothing all that special or challenging.

Wasn't this Beta checked?

Thanks to everyone (including Big Fish) that review these games so quickly! Time is cramped for me and all your reviews really help me decide before I download games. It is GREATLY appreciated!!!!!

General: Untimed. Interesting storyline. Extremely heavy on the dialogue. (I felt like I was clicking "next" as much as I was looking for items)
Graphics: Crisp and clear. No overly dark areas.
Music: Somewhat annoying. Soundtrack is short and loops constantly. May need to turn sound off/down.
HOG scenes: All items are appropriate to the scene and not overly cluttered, which results in the HOG scenes being very easy. There are additional areas to be searched (located by a magnifying glass). When you have found everything available in the additional area that area closes out, which is -no wasting time hunting for items that aren't there. No penalty for random clicking.
Inventory items: I don't know that this qualifies as an interactive HOG. You do find inventory items which are used, but they are used in the immediate scene and there really isn't a lot of "brain power" involved in figuring them out. So to the IHOG aspect.
Mini-games: I only ran across two (untangle the ropes and connect the pipes). Nothing spectacular there.
Hint System: Unlimited. Pinpoints exact location of item. Recharges quickly.
Length: Seems to be on the short side. I completed 4 1/2 chapters (out of 8) during the demo time.
Overall Impression: This is not a buy for me. The game was well done and the graphics and storyline are nice, but it's just lacking something. The shortness and easiness of it, combined with the overly heavy emphasis on dialogue and the lack of any real need for "brain power" (in the mini-games or the inventory puzzles) have moved this game off my buy list. I think this game had the potential to be a really great game (mainly because of the story behind it) but I think it needed a little more fine-tuning in order to make it as good as it could have been. Which is disapponting, because the previews of the game sounded good and I was looking forward to it.

i really liked the story and if a hog has a good story that really is a for me because it keeps me interested until the end. some of the scenes were not as easy for me as i couldn't always see the object. it wasn't that much of an interactive hog but that is ok because i also like straight hogs like the mystery pi series.

graphics were good not fuzzy, choppy, mouse didn't float away or drag like in some games.

i give it 1/2 stars because i really liked the story kept me captivated to find out what happened next and the clearness of the scenes.

I thought it was a horrid little game. I could barely tell from the tiny pictures what object I was supposed to find. Maybe it was just my eyes, but how can I find something if I can't tell what it is? I didn't even finish the demo because I got so irritated. Big

I bought the game after i played the first hour and then it took me about 4hours to finish, i actually enjoyed it, as i have been trying to complete the DELAWERE game! So it was refreshing to have something light and i must say abit toooooo easy fro me, loved the ending what a cliche, is there a part two i wonder. Not enough mini games or challenges, perhaps we have been spoiled by good games like Treasure seekers and Dream chronicles etc. But it does have potential as being a better game so perhaps they will work on giving us a second one being alot more thought out,
all in all not bad
Kia

There was such terrific advance hype about this game that I was pleased with its being a TGT. I agree with the majority of the fish who call Mary Celeste " all flash, no fire". For starters, some of us HOGophiles are simply getting better at this type of game the more we see them. Even the Hiddens in RTR aren't hard to find. It's the rest of the game and its challenges that make it great. Celeste would have been a better game if the objects were word listed or broken into segments, a la
Crystal POrtal. Too bad because the story line is a good one, the graphics are
crisp. I doubt the game will have solid replay value because the hiddens will be the same all the time.

A definite thumbs down for this turkey. Methinks a lot of developers are cranking out games really fast to make a buck and in the process are downplaying development.

calsmom2001 wrote:Like Poodlebear I found this to be pretty standard IHOG (interesting acronym PB, is that original to you? I haven't run across it before).

Don't think I was the first to use it, no. I do try to use it whenever possible because I thinks it's a useful way to diferentiate between Inventory Puzzle Adventure type and the standard type of HOGs and I hope the community embraces it for clarity's sake.

...and I agree with some of the comments above that this game is *barely* an IHOG but it's more than a standard HOG because you *are* re-using found objects, not just clearing them from the scene like in a HOG. And you should be working out the logic of which to use, which *is* an Inventory Puzzle, granted a very simple one in this instance.

LETS KEEP IT SIMPLE ,& IT SUCKED !

First impression the story line is so tedious, the game is too much easy i play for only 30 minutes but I'm sure i'll not buy this.