Game review: Secrets of Great Art

I have a weakness for hidden object games. They are usually fairly easy and I can play them with my five-year old daughter. Tonight I tried Secrets of Great Art from Big Fish Games Their description of the game reads: "Secrets slither within the canvas in Secrets of Great Art. Only you can uncover the truth behind the brush strokes! Help your amnesia stricken hero recover his lost memory and solve the mystery hidden within antique paintings. Explore 60 unique levels of beautiful paintings and put your perception skills to the test." It's a weird storyline. You play a man who has found himself in some sort of museum where only he can see the hidden objects in the paintings. The goal is to figure out why you are there.

In between each hidden object 'level' of the game, you are faced with a Find The Differences puzzle. They don't do a whole lot to move the storyline forward and they end up being rather aggravating after awhile. The hidden object parts of the game are OK but they aren't anything spectacular. As a matter of fact, with the way this game is scored, you are penalized 100 points for every wrong click you make. Considering there are about 20 objects hidden in the picture with only five objects listed at any given time, it's easy to make a ton of wrong clicks. Especially if you have no idea what the listed object is.

While this isn't the worst hidden object game I've played, this was definitely the most boring. There is absolutely nothing to set this apart from other games in this genre and the storyline is confusing. I was ready for the game to be over by the time ran out on the 60 minute demo.