Tamara the 13th

Tamara the 13th is a new PlayFirst’s hidden object adventure that has you playing as a young witch and saving your mother from an ancient evil witch. So you are to wander about magical lands and solve different mini-games. As you can see this is a classical hidden object storyline. But classical games can be also quite different, you know.

We were loading this game with great expectations, as its preview and screenshots were quite promising. The more you expect something, the more you get disappointed. As pity as it sounds but this is a rule of life. Tamara the 13th is a really very strange game, and this not a compliment at all. It is a hidden object installment where the items are scattered around the scene. This a case when hidden objects denote the very meaning of “hidden”. Most of the items are too hard to clear up because they are blended in with the background color and they are all resized.

The same situation we have with the puzzles. The main principle of them is to find tiny items and then stick them into glowing area. Don’t find it too childish? At least not for experienced players. Moreover, it so irritating to be every time instructed when you move one or another items to the right place. These comments do not take a lot of time, but it is very annoying. The gameplay seems extremely short – about two hours or even less. The music is a bit jarring and will break game mystic atmosphere, if you do not turn it off immediately. What a shame for developers to put so much efforts and then ruin it by making all hidden items practically invisible and mini-puzzles so primitive! If you like to play pressing your nose to the monitor, welcome to the new hidden object game.

4, January 2011