Hidden Expedition Everest is the second title in this growing hidden object franchise. Sandwiched between Hidden Expedition Titanic and Hidden Expedition Amazon, Hidden Expedition Everest will take you to over 30 exotic locations around the world before reaching the finish line at the summit of Everest.
Your host throughout the game is Ed Viesturs, one of the world’s premier high-altitude mountaineers who will guide you ,throw in some interesting facts during play and provide you with his photo album revealing pictures from his own real-life adventures. These will be revealed as you complete levels
Hidden Expedition : Everest itself is fundamentally a hidden object game which doesn’t have much of a storyline , and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it’s more about the adventure and appreciating some of the world’s more colourful cultures.
Beginning in the South America’s , moving through Europe and culminating in Asia, players compete against three other teams – The Scholars, the Scarlet Hat League and The Gamers in a race to reach the top of Mount Everest.
As with all Hidden Object titles players are presented with a busy scene and a list of items to find within a given time. As you begin in South America, where you’ll visit such places as the Amazon forest, Peru’s Machu Picchu and Mexico’s El Dorado, you’ll be required to hunt for items, such as a leek, garden gnome, pickle, really quite random items. Every time you successfully click on the item it will disappear from the list; the level is completed when you find everything. There are 3 given hints per level however, you do have the opportunity to add to this tally by finding a number of jewels in each scene. There is also an egg timer hidden within each scene, find this for additional time allowance. Along the bottom of the screen there is also a bar which indicates the positioning of the other expedition teams who are trying to catch you however , I never found myself in a “close race” I completed hours before my next rival. Perhaps this is an area that could be tweaked to heighten the timing element. There are also 18 hidden items scattered throughout the game – such as shoes, octopus, paintbrush, – and if they match the silhouette from the secret items book, you will gain a special bonus!
There is a secondary seek-and-find game requiring you to find numerous items such as “20 axes” or “20 pipes” a drawing and some text will reveal your next destination. Most of the mini games are jigsaw style rotating and putting together pieces of a broken plate, torn map, shattered skeleton for example. All more or less following the same format.
Summary
Having played Hidden Expedition Amazon first it has been interesting to see the evolution of the franchise even though it has been in reverse order !The developers have paid a lot of care and attention to detail as much in fact as any of the titles in the MCF franchise. The graphics, musical score, ambient sounds and general game play are excellent and you really do get a sense of the growth towards the high production values in Hidden Expedition Amazon no matter what stage of the game you are at. You can see flickers of movement in some of the scenes already in Everest a concept which was developed more in Amazon
Marks out of 10
Sound:8 – good musical score and ambient noises
Graphics:9 – Beautiful artwork and Ed Viesturs album really compliments the game. Nice cut scene at the end too
Gameplay: 8 – Lovely flow to the game
Lifespan: 9 – Ageless you’ll revisit on a regular basis
Top Star goes to the cut scene at the end
The beauty of these games now is that they are available on hard disk and vista compatible .view all Focus multimedia hidden object titles here
