by Marcel Dufresne
Mar 21, 2024
Finding America: The West is a hidden object game (HOG). The basic premise of the game is to locate items from a list of objects. These are carefully hidden in the picture. It is exceedingly difficult to quickly find all the items as they are well camouflaged. Also, the name might not be as helpful as you might think. Searching for a bee might be for an insect or the letter B. A bat could be an animal or a baseball bat. It is only with the careful observation that all the items can be found. I would venture to say that more than fifty items could be found per picture of which only a dozen or so are to be part of the list. Once found, you need only click on the object and it is removed from the list.
The West is the fourth in the Finding America series that we have played. I reviewed the others a while back. There are more of this series to come. I consider this game to be a pure HOG. There is no wandering around looking for inventory items to help solve a mini-puzzle. Each of the 50 chapters starts with you visiting two to four of thirty regions that tourists would be visiting if they were travelling through the West. I appreciated being in a position to visit places I had seen as a tourist. These included, among others, places like the Devil’s Tower, Yellowstone, and Mesa Verde. With 150 fun facts included, the Finding America series has an educational value not often found in other HOG.
The graphics used throughout this game are superb. The detail and the colours make the scenery come to life. The game allows you to explore the most popular sites of the West. Because there are such precise graphics, you might think that the hidden objects would be easier to spot. You would be wrong. I found them to be even better concealed than most of the other games I have played. The magnifying function is essential in completing the scene. I often had to double-click the picture to zoom the whole scene. This is a much better way to enlarge an area. Other games magnify only a small circular area. Being able to scan through the entire scene was much more efficient. Kudos to the developers as the graphics did not lose focus when enlarged. They were as clear to see with or without the zoom. And when all else fails I could use the hint button for those exceptionally well-disguised items.
As a bonus, each of the scenes has five fun facts about the tourist spots hidden in the picture. You are required to locate a specially hidden key to unlock each of the fun facts. They are revealed one at a time, so the location has to be replayed at least five times to get all the fun facts out of the way. A star is also hidden in the scene. It unlocks the mini-game for that chapter. These two items are also extremely well camouflaged. What makes this even harder is that hints are not provided to help you find the keys.
Like many of the newer Boomzap HOG, there are different modes for completing the hidden object windows. The seven ways are by name (normal), by missing vowels, by silhouette, by scrambled-up names, by pairs, by image, and by solving a riddle. The HO are well hidden, as are the separate star and key found on each level. One additional thing I like is the morphing of some of the objects. You might be looking for an item but it is not to be found until it morphs into the desired shape. The riddle mode was changed from past games. Instead of one clue, the riddle has a list of four linked hints. We were quickly able to decipher the riddle because of this.
After you have completed a chapter, you then play a mini-game. Finding America has numerous variations on the jigsaw puzzle type. Besides the normal jigsaw puzzle, you might have to spin a piece or switch places for two pieces or both. Other mini-games include finding the differences or pairs, and logic placement games. The one mini-game I did not like was the graphic colouring which was simply filling in the picture with colours by dragging the mouse around. I found this to be a waste of time as no thinking was needed. By the theme, each mini-game has a Western theme in the background. These can be replayed at any time. My favourite mini-game was to locate the smaller picture in the larger full-screen collage. This was far from easy as the pictures were quite complex.
Once you have completed all the scenes, you can now play the Unlimited Mode. This includes all the HOG scenes as well as the mini-puzzles. Finding America has great replayability. For each scene, you can attempt to solve the list using each of the seven types. This is recorded for you. If you are missing a fun fact, this is also recorded here. You can review the fun facts and do not have to remember them on your own. Each time you play a scene you are not necessarily presented with the same list of items. There are hours and hours of fun awaiting you.
As a potential tourist to these areas, Finding America gives me some interesting sights to visit. This HOG can be played by yourself or with a group where everyone is helping find the camouflaged items. It is also a game to be enjoyed by any age group. If you prefer playing this type of game without having to move from screen to screen and back again, then I strongly recommend Finding America: The West. We had a lot of fun playing this game. It took us over fifteen hours to finish all the levels. Click here to read what Boomzap has to say about the game. With all the replayability and the various types of HOG and jigsaw puzzles, it is well worth the price.
Mause Reviews 