Game review: Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst

The Mystery Case Files series is probably the best known hidden object game. A new MCF game has appeared - Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst. You return to the scene of the original game in order to solve more mysteries. While the hidden object aspect of the game hasn't changed any, there are new additions. This time, you carry certain objects in your inventory so you can use them to open puzzles in other locations. For example, in order to get a key out from under a cat, you need to find some cheese to give to a mouse so you can capture the mouse to give to the cat. In some ways, it can be fun. However, a lot of the puzzles are extremely difficult. I had a such a difficult time trying to open the sun/moon puzzle that I was unable to complete it before my trial period ran out. Since there was no way to skip that particular puzzle, it was frustrating. I liked trying to find the various objects needed to obtain other objects but some of the puzzles were just too difficult. If you can put up with those pieces, I think you'll enjoy the game a lot.

Holiday Hiatus....sorta

Since I have been completely lax about updating for the past few days, I'm going to officially put The Geek Within on a holiday hiatus for Thanksgiving. Well, sorta anyway. If I find something amazing that I absolutely need to talk about, I'll talk about it. But I'm not going to force boring updates that no one wants to read. I promise that I will be back in full-force next week.

Game review: Cinema Tycoon 2: Movie Mania

A long time ago, I played the first Cinema Tycoon game. I tend to have a weakness for Tycoon games but this one was fairly boring. Basically, you are given a movie theater and you need to run it. You pick what movies will play, how much tickets cost, the type of advertising you'll use and even what you'll sell at the concession stand. The problem is that once the day started running, there wasn't anything for you to do. So you spent a lot of the time fast-forwarding through the day. Cinema Tycoon 2: Movie Mania isn't much different. You seem to spend a lot of time just picking out what movies to show and restocking the concession stand. The rest of the options don't seem particularly necessary. Definitely a boring game.

A new dishwasher = a new faucet too?

My birthday is this weekend. As a present, my husband bought me a dishwasher. (No need to kill him, I wanted it.) However, we don't have room for a built-in dishwasher. Instead, we got a portable one that hooks up to the faucet. Unfortunately, this means we may need to go shopping for kitchen faucets now. Our house is an older one so all of the hardware in the house is pretty old. I'm not sure if the dishwasher hookup will fit on our current faucet. But that just means more presents for me, right?

Summer please!

When I woke up this morning, it was snowing. For some of you, this is normal. However, in my neck of the woods, snow in November is a rarity. Considering how much I hate winter and coldness, this is a terrible sign for me. Every year I threaten to buy an electric blanket to keep me warm but since my husband loves the cold, I've never gotten around to actually purchase one. Maybe this year will be my warm year! Down with winter! All hail summer!

I want to know about you....Thanksgiving edition.

For those of us in the United States, Thanksgiving is coming up next week. For most people, this means huge turkey dinners with tons of family members. I'd like to try to get to know my readers a little bit better. So tell me, dear reader, what are your Thanksgiving plans? If you don't live in the United States, does your country celebrate a Thanksgiving? If you do, how do you celebrate?

Game review: Road to Riches

Wanting to try something a bit different, I downloaded Road to Riches. You play John, a trucker who has been fired from his job. Instead of getting down in the dumps, he decides to open his own delivery company. Unfortunately, this is not a good time management game. It is difficult to figure out which shipments you need to pick up and which ones you should turn down. If you try to pick up all of them, you will frequently go into "overtime" and be penalized. It would be nice if there was a way to color the important deliveries one color and the unimportant ones a separate color. So, while this should be a fun game to play, it is not. It is just frustrating.