Masters of Mystery: Blood of Betrayal, a new polished hidden object game from Big Blue Bubble, will have an effect of déjà vu for those who have already met Masters of Mystery: Crime of Fashion. But there is no reason to avoid it since this game offers up challenging tasks.

Without revealing much of the story, players step into the shoes of detective Carrie Chase as she works a high profile case that involves plenty of dead people. Carrie moves from one location to another based on the clues she finds at the previous scene. The hidden object puzzles are, for the most part, very well done. The scenes are beautifully rendered, almost to the point of being photo realistic. Plus, the objects for which we hunt aren’t scattered randomly about. There are no ghostly shapes hidden in the sky or items that have been discolored, shrunken, or enlarged to better blend in with their environments. Everything is the right size and shape, and, by and large, located in a sensible area. That is not to say the game is absolutely easy. On the contrary some of the puzzles can be very difficult. Finding individual rounds of ammunition, for example, can be extremely bewildering due to their small size and the fact that they could be virtually anywhere.

Even so, the greatest criticism to be leveled against Masters of Mystery: Blood of Betrayal is that some of the objects are just too hard to find. There are a lot of darkly lit scenes that make you use the hint button at least ten times. Honestly, if the hints were limited you would have played till the end of time. Besides most of the hidden object puzzles are typical, but they are nonetheless entertaining. Unfortunately, the voice acting is rather annoying, especially when it cut into a scene you are working. You can skip through, but it may break the enjoyment of the game.

We should admit Masters of Mystery: Blood of Betrayal has no extraordinary features. It is just a fine game with decent length that can easily amaze fans of hidden object genre.

7, December 2009