Ok, let’s be honest. Amazing Adventures: The Lost Tomb is just another hidden object game. You will find that 99% of the design shares much with the other 5 million casual hidden object games released in the last year, starting from Mystery Case Files almost two years ago now. And that’s enough to make a reviewer weep – because what are you supposed to say about new hidden object games? We’d like to say that they are all clones and dismiss them, but the problem is, hidden object games are still fun. Unlike the Diner Dash or Bejeweled clones, the Mystery Case Files clones have a reason to exist, because these games are inherently non-replayable. Once you have found the pineapples and rolling pins in a picture, there’s not a lot of reason to look at that picture again. So you go buy a new hidden object game. And as long as you enjoy it, the hidden object genre can pretty much live forever.
That being said, Amazing Adventures: the Lost Tomb does add a few things to the hidden object genre – or at least copies them well from other sources. There are riddle-based objects to find, and multiple objects of a type to find in some levels, and there are some fun puzzle games between levels – but you’ve likely seen all of this before. But that doesn’t make it any less fun. I was particularly pleased to see that they allowed unlimited hints – so I don’t ever lose levels unless I want to. Because, as we know, playing the same level again isn’t a lot of fun.
And if there is a problem with the game, that’s it. When you have seen all of the settings, they run you through them again – so you feel a bit cheated when you are deep in the game and not seeing any new images. Sure, now I am finding dice and playing cards instead of bananas and oranges, but it’s the same map, and I want something new. And even then, some of the objects are obscured offscreen or so blurry that it’s pretty unbelieveable that anyone found them w/o a hint button. But that’s what it’s there for, I guess.
Overall, it is what it is – a reasonably well done hidden object game set in Egypt. Worth buying? Depends on how into these you are. Worth downloading? Certainly. Get on it.
Review by
Nick Kojima
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