The Mystery of the Crystal Portal 2 (click for larger version)
The Mystery of the Crystal Portal 2 is a hidden-object game in which the plot is only loosely relevant to the actual gameplay. So although I hadn’t played the first in the series, I didn’t find that it was absolutely necessary either. Apparently in the first game Nicole and her father found a portal to Atlantis; the second game finds her on her way to find her father, who is apparently still somewhere in Atlantis—and then trying to open a portal back home again.
The game consists of looking for objects to activate certain objects (shown in the rings above). Sometimes the ring will show a few objects, and when one is found another is revealed. There are also some objects which are chained together—for instance, you may have to find everything to unlock the fan, which is itself needed for another object. Also, there are some objects that need to be assembled before they can be found—the bird in the stained glass window pictured above is an example. The “fixing” is a fairly simple matter—simply find all the pieces and tap them and they pop into place.
While I enjoy hidden-object games, the story always seems to be awkwardly stuck on. At one point, you’re looking for an old woman’s glasses, which you can see on the table. But before you can get the glasses, you need to find several objects first. Why? Well, because that’s the point of the game. The graphics are gorgeous and detailed, and I’m sure would be even more impressive on the new iPhone screen or the iPad; there are occasionally some interface issues but on the whole it seems to work better than Chronicles of Mystery. (Another hidden-object game, also by G5 Entertainment, is Treasure Seekers: Visions of Gold—also with a female lead and the same interface.)
Crystal Portal is $4.99 for the iPhone version and $6.99 for the iPad, making it the priciest of these three apps, though there is a free version of the first installment if you want to give it a shot before paying. Although I did spend a lot of time playing through the game, it felt the least satisfying, perhaps because of the tacked-on nature of the story—I felt like I was doing chores in order to get a little more of the story, which wasn’t really exciting in itself. I may have had more fun if it were simply set up as a pure hidden-object game without any plotline at all. For more about this and other games, visit G5 Entertainment’s website.
Wired: Gorgeous graphics and the satisfaction of finding hidden objects.
Tired: The storyline and gameplay are only loosely related to each other.
