Neptune's Secret
Score: 85% ESRB: Not Rated Publisher: Reflexive Developer: Gogii Games Media: Download/1 Players: 1 Genre: Family/ Edutainment/ Puzzle
Graphics & Sound: Neptune's Secret follows a classic "seek-and-find" gaming model, similar to what most of us first experienced with I Spy games - either the computer games or the "driving down the road" version. At least for the computer gaming world, this has become a model that looks and sounds beautiful. You'll find elaborate backgrounds chock full of objects and animation in Neptune's Secret, plus some scripted sequences that tell the story. Each time you use a hint, you see special animations that are fun and not long enough to be annoying in a "wish I could skip this" way. The unique thing about Neptune's Secret is that it doesn't require reading skills. The objects you need to find are displayed on the side of the screen as silhouettes, which is good for non-readers, but overall more challenging. You first have to figure out what object you're looking for and then find it among the clutter on-screen. The cutscenes are forgettable but a nice way to bridge certain levels in the game; there is some way over-the-top voice acting that accompanies the scenes and adds a lot of drama to what is not a really dramatic storyline. Thankfully they got the music right, which is always relaxing and comfortably in the background.
Gameplay: The seek-and-find style of gaming is evolving from its purest form to some story-driven variations, like this one. The story behind the game is that you play a young girl adventurer in search of the answers behind an ancient mystery. The plot is illustrated in comic-panel style, beginning with an explanation of the battle between gods that ended with Neptune burying Zeus' favorite city, Atlantis, beneath the waves. Neptune's Secret can only be pieced together by exploring the ruins of Atlantis. Hannah, the girl explorer, is uniquely qualified to solve the mystery because of a special jeweled pendant that has been passed down through her family. There are several stages, each with multiple levels that follow a similar format. In each level, you'll work through a process of matching silhouettes to objects on screen. There are five gemstones hidden in each level that can be stored in Hannah's pendant and used to pinpoint hard-to-find objects. Once the objects are all found, there is a transition to finding ten versions of a specific object hidden around the level. These tend to follow the theme of your location, so in an old theater you'll be looking for theater glasses, while in a market you'll be looking for wine bottles. The final exercise in each level is to find pieces of specific objects you'll need to move into the next level. This is made especially hard because the scale of the object pieces is all crazy. In every other sequence, the objects are scaled exactly as seen in their silhouette, but the final seek-and-find is appropriately the most difficult. Working through each level in this way is really the entire game, a la "lather, rinse, repeat." It isn't a bad thing... it's a casual game, after all.
Difficulty: Neptune's Secret will work well across a broad swathe of gamers, largely because it doesn't require reading skills. The final stage of each level, as mentioned above, is a puzzle but not a very difficult one. You piece together objects and then use them. It's pretty obvious what can be done with the objects since only a few things in the level can be manipulated. Still, it makes moving from level to level more challenging than would otherwise be the case. The downside of the Neptune's Secret format is that replay value suffers because of a more scripted, static formula. You'll play it once and be done, versus other games where the list of items you search for changes the second time you play a level.
Game Mechanics: There's not much to say beyond, "point and click." Things are pretty simple in the mechanics' department, for this style of game. A few mentionables include the option to create several player profiles. This is good for households that have more than one fan of Neptune's Secret. You can exit a level and save, but only at the point where you began the level. It would have been an improvement to have the option for a mid-level save, but that isn't the case here. The downside of this is that a level may require more of a time commitment than some are willing to make, but on average each level will take no more than ten minutes. Not a huge time commitment, in the grand scheme of things. Neptune's Secret will appeal to casual gaming fans of any ability, including the pre-K crowd that isn't up on reading just yet. The little kiddies might find Neptune himself a bit scary, which is how he's depicted in the game, but it's not like some survival horror title or side-scrolling shooter where Neptune shows up as a fire-breathing monster... The formula behind Neptune's Secret makes for engaging gameplay that is well balanced enough to never feel frustrating, thanks to plentiful hints and crisp visuals. An enjoyable download title with a modest sticker price, Neptune's Secret shouldn't be a secret much longer.
-Fridtjof, GameVortex Communications AKA Matt Paddock
Minimum System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4   Test System: iMac G5, OS X 10.4
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