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Mystery PI New York is a new twist on an old favorite. Mystery P.I. is an “I spy” style game where you play as a New York City sleuth working to locate lost items to fulfill a will. After playing the limited demo of the game I rated it a 5/5 based on five sections.

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Game Play:
Mystery P.I. features a simple point and click style interface. Game play is mediated completely by the mouse. This means that gamers can look forward to a very easy and intuitive style of play. The screen is divided between a list of things to find and a large static image that contains the items. Players simply scan the screen to locate the items. While it may not sound difficult some of the levels with have even the most seasoned gamer scratching their head and frantically searching.

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Sound:
The soundtrack to Mystery P.I. is very low key and groove oriented. The sound effects are subtle and well done. Each level features the same music, and so it can get a little repetitive after a while. This is a minor flaw in the game, especially when compared to all of the other rich aspects of Mystery P.I.

Creativity:
The creative department must have had their hands full with this game! To put it simply, Mystery P.I. is visually stunning! The levels are gorgeously illustrated and look painstakingly constructed. The side bar menu is a nice creative touch and all of the color elements work together extremely well. There is never a time during game play when you feel distracted by other aspects in the game. The colors used are vivid and striking and all of the animation is simple yet crisp. The amount creativity that was put into developing Mystery P.I. more than makes up for the lackluster sound track.

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Innovation:
The “I spy”/puzzle combo is unlike any other game that I’ve personally played. This game borrows the best from both and melds them together in a unique and exciting way. Mystery P.I. combines the items found in the “I spy” portions of the game into a final puzzle at the end of each section. The point and click interface is pretty basic, but this falls by the wayside when compared to the other unique aspects of the game. The added back story to the game adds a new dimension to the old style “I spy” theme that keeps the game interesting and gives the player a sense of accomplishment every time they complete a level.

Fun Factor/Addictiveness:
Mystery P.I.- The New York Fortune is an extremely fun and engaging game that you’ll be hard pressed to stop playing. The puzzles offer just the right amount of challenge, just enough to make you sweat but not enough to leave you feeling frustrated. The back story also adds an additional layer to the puzzle experience by giving you an end goal that sucks you in and leaves you begging for more.

Summary:
Overall Mystery P.I.- The New York Fortune is a gorgeous game with rich visuals, simple playability and an enticing back story. Short of the repetitive sound track, this game is flawless from beginning to end. The free demo version is just the beginning, with even more features available in the full version of the game. Mystery P.I. should set a new standard by which all other puzzlers to come should be judged.

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Item-based adventure games are the oldest genre of computer games around, dating back to the 1970s, and have developed from text-only affairs to full-motion video extravaganzas.
Avenue Flo is a quirky adventure that takes in the hidden object genre as well as traditional object-based puzzles and character interaction. A wedding is occupying everyone’s mind in Flordia Street, Dinertown, but on the big day the dress, rings, butterflies, cake, flowers and poodle have all gone missing. Flo wanders off to find or replace all of these items in time-honored fashion, and probably to uncover the mystery of who has gone to such lengths to disrupt the wedding.

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Game play
Pointing and clicking is very much the order of the day as Flo wanders around Dinertown looking for the various wedding ingredients. As well as the basic view of the rooms Flo explores, there is also a variety of mini-games for Flo to complete such as putting beads on a wedding dress, or packing parcels of wedding favors. Time is never a factor in these tasks, but annoyingly there doesn’t seem to be any kind of limit on the “hint” feature, meaning the player can basically cheat their way through these puzzle segments. I was also slightly irritated by the lack of control over Flo. She stands in the middle of each location and will wander over to objects when you click on them, but you can’t really move her around rooms much.

Graphics and Sound

Avenue Flo scores highly on graphical and audio, however. Not only is the animation of all the characters smooth and varied, but the graphics are detailed and clear, in spite of their cartoon qualities. Best of all is the introduction, which features a karaoke-theme tune and fully-animated movie. For the sheer energy and fun of it all, it’s one of the best intro sequences I’ve ever seen. After the intro the voices continue, and the audio is high-quality and clear, even if a few of the voices do get a bit irritating after a while.

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Creativity and Innovation

Adventure games are nothing new, even ones with beadwork mini-games. Avenue Flo has an energy and sense of fun about it that obscures the fact that there’s very little new here, and it pays off. It’s an extremely enjoyable but very slight game. And it does have an awesome intro number, which has got to count for a lot.

Is Avenue Flo worth $19.99? It depends, really, it’s a solid adventure game with some great flourishes, but there’s nothing startlingly new about it and it’s not particularly difficult. Having said that, when my trial expired I did find myself regretting the fact I’d never get to find the wire-cutters. Good for younger players.

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Buy Avenue Flo if you:

* Enjoy adventure games
* Like a nice catchy song
* Want a strong story line

Don’t buy it if you:

* Prefer more action
* Think adventure games were better back when they weren’t illustrated
* Are looking for a challenge

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Jewel Quest Mysteries 2: Trail of the Midnight Heart is an odd beast that relies primarily on the player’s observation skills, Where’s Wally with added interactivity.

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Story

Eva Witheby receives a strange message from her uncle out in India, and treks on out there by cruise liner, train and elephant. She finds herself celebrating her 21st birthday amongst complete strangers. Her uncle is apparently a collector of ‘jewel boards’ and needs Eva to wander around Asia spotting 50s Convertibles in Shangri-La. For some reason. All is probably not as it seems.

Gameplay

Although there are a heavy number of other screens, with diaries and maps and mini games, the main portion of the game consists of studying crowded paintings of ruins, temples and things and finding the objects listed on the left of the screen, as well as coins and jewels. You can cash jewels in for ‘upgrades’ and hints and things. You need to click on all the objects on the list to progress, but the main objective is to find shards of jewel boards in order to play a ‘Bejewelled’ style matching game to clear the level. Once you’ve entered your name at the beginning, the whole game is mouse-based.

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Many of the objects are artfully camouflaged, and you receive time penalties for clicking on incorrect objects, which discourages random clicking. There is a time limit, which presumably becomes tougher as levels progress, but this begins as a pretty laidback game with plenty of time to enjoy the scenery.

Graphics and sound

The game is a visual and aural triumph. From the professional menus and impressive diary entries with watercolour style illustrations, to the scrolling search screens from train windows, everything looks amazing. Popular paintings and tourist views are adapted for search screens, and take on a surreal edge when filled with coat racks and jukeboxes. The ‘jewel board’ minigames are also well-animated and fun. The sound effects and music are atmospheric and evocative, from people moaning about the cramped conditions on a train to the squawks of parrots in the jungle. Brilliant!

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Creativity and innovation

It had never occurred to me that ‘hidden object adventures’ would be a particularly big genre, but it turns out there’s quite a few. Trail of the Midnight Heart has incredibly high production values and a quirky edge to the objects you have to find which makes it feel very fresh and fun. Probably best suited to younger players, though, on the whole.

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed Trail of the Midnight Heart, and it’s definitely worth $19.99 to continue the adventuring. Low-key but highly enjoyable!

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Buy this game if you:
*Like the Where’s Wally books
*Need to hone observation skills
*Fancy something a bit different

Don’t buy this game if you:
*Prefer more action
*Are easily frustrated
*Are visually impaired