Shiver: Vanishing Hitchhiker Collector's Edition

Shiver: Vanishing Hitchhiker from Artogon Games starts as a pretty familiar spooky story of vanishing hitchhiker. One rainy night, a solitary road, a strange female passenger, an odd toy in the back seat that is a traditional set of any horror hidden object game. But not every hidden object game does a wonderful job of creating a proper game atmosphere, doesn’t it? 

Opening with ordinary gloomy story, Shiver: Vanishing Hitchhiker quickly takes several spins and transforms into an absolute unique game. This time around, your common driving home turns into a thrilling adventure and upside down your daily life. Now it is up to you to reveal the greatest town’s secret, find out who is the evil-doer and how to stop him. Visiting and scanning different locations are the main activities there. While most of locations may seem too outworn, they are still well-presented and perfectly fit the story. Especially the cemetery looks very authentically there. Most of the puzzles are challenging, but there are a lot of traditional puzzles to this genre.

Nevertheless, Shiver: Vanishing Hitchhiker is gorgeous in graphics and looks so realistic that you can feel that someone is staring at you, breathing behind your back. The music never overpowers and always support the mood of the game. The title is crowded with scary and unpredictable moments that can really make some sensitive players jump in their chair. So, if you want to take it to the extreme, shut off the lights and use headphones.   

Well, this new hidden object adventure can boasts of many features but it does still have few pitfalls. The scenes, while well-drawn and vivid, are cluttered more than usual. The end of the game is rather vague than clear. Overall, we are happy to recommend this game because of its cool, creepy atmosphere. It seems the developer really know what and how to do. Way to go!

6, April 2011