Here's a link to Jessica's Cupcake Cafe: Jessica's Cupcake Cafe
8.0 excellent
I've never been to New York City. I've been taken on a private tour of Twentieth Century Fox in Los Angeles, and just last weekend I was eating Coco's Ichiban Curry in Chicago. But I've yet to make it to New York. Some friends went once and stayed in a cheap hotel; at 3am someone pulled the fire alarm and my friends had to spend the rest of the night in their car. I guess after hearing that story I've been reluctant to travel to the Big Apple. Odd, I suppose... when I practically live in Tokyo, certainly a bigger city than New York.
Big City Adventure: New York, from Jolly Bear Games, is the third game in their Big City Adventure scavenger hunt series of hidden object games. The Martin family is back: Mom, Dad, Brother, Sister, crazy Grandpa, and Grandma have decided to take a trip to New York City, where Grandpa and Grandma used to live before moving out to the midwest. As in the previous games, you get to select your character and whether you want a timed or untimed scavenger hunt... throughout ninety city locations.
Before entering each location, you're shown interesting facts about it in the form of a postcard sent to a friend back home. Can you imagine visiting a city and sending home ninety postcards? Crazier things have happened! If you've played the former games you'll notice that more occasional spelling mistakes have been included. I suppose old habits die hard. Despite those embarrassing moments, the facts really are interesting and worth reading.
In each location there are twelve objects to find. Two, printed in blue text, are hidden inside a special "zoomable" area onscreen. When you mouse over that area, it becomes outlined in blue and the mouse pointer changes to a magnifying glass. Clicking on the area pops up a window showing the contents of the area in closer detail. After you find the two objects the popup window closes automatically. The other ten objects are in the scene proper, just waiting to be clicked on. Phones, lobsters, garbage cans, mice, starfish, umbrellas, skateboards, lips, anchors, watermelons, etc. New York has it all! Finding and clicking on an object removes it from the screen (it explodes!) and crosses it off of your scavenger list. Finding all twelve objects completes the level and sends you on your way to your next stop.
Yes, hidden objects explode! Will this become the next big craze? One can only dream!
If you play in timed mode, random clicking is, unfortunately, penalized. Too many wrong clicks amounts to thirty seconds being subtracted from the time remaining in the level. I know that sounds harsh, and I don't like it any more than you do, but in practice I found I was able to get away with a lot of random clicking just by timing my wrong clicks between correct clicks. I guess when they outlaw random clicking, only clickers will be random. Or something.
You get points for every hidden object you find. And for finding one immediately after another, you get bonus points. Since your score is compared with other users on your computer, use my strategy: find two objects (or more) before clicking on either and then click on them in quick succession! Instant bonus! At the end of a level you also get points for the amount of time remaining on the clock and the amount of bonus coins still in your inventory.
Each scene contains these bonus gold Qarakhanid Dynasty coins. I suppose the city has scattered them about to help you in your tireless search for hidden objects. Regular bonus coins reveal the location onscreen of any one object. Special fast forward coins reveal the locations of three objects at once. Time bonus coins add additional seconds to your time allotment for that location. And score bonus coins immediately pump bonus points into your score total. Qarakhanid Dynasty coins are pretty easy to find - you can't miss them.
Between all levels are a variety of minigames that reveal your next location. For example: a simple matching game, a memory game, a pipes game, mahjong, a puzzle, a "stuff all your luggage into the trunk of the cab" game, and perhaps one or two others I've forgotten. During your adventure in the Big Apple you occasionally receive skip coins that allow you to bypass one of these puzzles.
Inexplicably, Big City Adventure: New York defaults to 800x600 resolution screens, which makes tiny objects a blurry mess! I was all ready to chastise Jolly Bear Games for staying back in 2006 while the rest of us have moved onto sharper, more resolute graphics. However if you check the "Maximum Quality" option in the Options menu, the game will be displayed in your native resolution, or at least a higher one than 800x600! Believe me, this is absolutely necessary for your enjoyment of the game. Unless you have a much older computer I fully recommend playing at "Maximum Quality."
Whatever Big City Adventure: New York lacks in the way of sharp graphics, it more than makes up for it in levels. It's refreshing to play a game where, even though you repeat the same hidden object scenes, you don't do so quite as often as in many other games.
Download Big City Adventure: New York
I think that this game should be unlimited trial. But overall the game is terrific and I look forward to playing again when unlimited.