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8.8 ultra recommended
I just mailed a bunch of dog snacks to Japan. I've been sending my friend's dogs Pup-peroni treats for so long now that they get excited when any package arrives. I got an email from my friend's cell phone with a picture of the dogs sitting by the Pup-peroni. "Subject: AND Message: They know what these gifts," she wrote. A few minutes later I got an email with a picture of one dog with floppy ears looking hungrily on as someone scissored open the treats. "Subject: THEN Message: We can't wait!!!"
But enough about Pup-peroni. Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the North Pole... Veronica Rivers: Portals to the Unknown, from Dragon Altar Games, is the story of a normal day in the life of supermodel hot North Pole rescue post operative, Veronica Rivers. After receiving a distress call from one of the nearby geologic research stations, Veronica gathers together her camera, an apple, a thermos, kettle of hot water, a flashlight, a lucky teddy bear, and a lot of other things because this is - you guessed it - a hidden object game.
It seems some mysterious creatures and a huge snowstorm attacked the geologists' camp. Luckily buried in the polar ice the researchers found a stargate, I mean an ancient portal, and managed to escape carrying all their umbrellas and statuettes and hammers and old television sets and pineapples and boots... to the sunny swamps beside the Mekong River in Laos. There they dropped some of their junk and continued their journey through the next portal, to good old Ireland. And so on, and so on. As Veronica Rivers, you must follow their trail of clutter, using your amazing PDA to find hidden objects, take pictures documenting your journey, and most importantly scan for evidence of alien interference on our reality as well as message tablets hidden in the folds of space-time.
Boy can those geologists carry a lot of stuff! We've all seen those movies where a group of people have to walk through the hot burning desert, but some idiot among them wants to carry along a huge gold statue or his favorite bowling ball or a box of winter clothing or two grocery bags full of Pup-peroni, etc. And of course he ends up leaving it in the sand. I guess it's the same with these geologists. Tip: always pack light when you're on the run!
In every scene you're given a list of objects to find. Usually they're listed by name on your PDA, but sometimes only their shapes (in silhouette) are revealed. Sometimes you're shown a split screen and have to find the differences between two scenes. A few of the hidden objects further the story, but others are just random. That's what happens when you live your life at the behest of your PDA. Click on an object and it will be removed from the scene and crossed off your list. Longtime readers know that I'm a huge fan of random clicking, and thankfully Portals to the Unknown is agreeably leniant in allowing a burst of fast random clicking now and then. Do too much of it, however, and the screen will turn yellow for a few seconds and you won't be able to click on anything. There are no time limits, which is nice because usually those limits are ridiculously extravagant.
By default, Veronica offers commentary about every object she finds. Pencil sharpener: "This will come in handy when my pencils become dull." Statuette: "A sophisticated statuette. It would fit my collection at home." The letter A: "All knowledge starts with this letter, I would say. And I wouldn't mind knowing what the hell is going on." Okay... You can turn this commentary off in the options menu, but leave it on because it's worth it... unless you're going back to replay certain scenes and don't want to see the same messages again and again. Just a few times the commentary breaks down when it attempts to address the plot of an area, because finding objects in a different order than the commentary expects results in Veronica getting ahead of herself in explanations.
If you need hints or tips, the game is very charitable. There's usually a hint button somewhere and pressing it will find one of the hidden objects. You won't be able to ask for another hint for twenty seconds, however.
Your PDA will sometimes ask you to take some pictures of the scene, just to prove to everyone back home that you really are having this wonderful adventure traveling around via magic portals. When taking snapshots, your mouse pointer becomes a camera viewfinder and clicking activates the camera. Paradoxically, the pictures you are asked to take by the PDA are shown on the PDA's display, so they're already in there. (It's confusing the first time you're asked to take pictures. Hint: Find, inside the scene, the same bit of picture shown in black and white in the PDA display, line up the viewfinder mouse pointer with it carefully - the pointer should change slightly to let you know you've got it - then click!) So why do you have to take pictures that are already in the PDA? Insert here a funny animated gif of a sheep turning its head back and forth and ???'s flying out.
Your all-knowing PDA also acts as a scanner, scanning for alien symbols that are only revealed when you mouse over their hieroglyphic with the mouse, or secret message tablets that look like keys to some giant extraterrestrial mutant door. There are a variety of minigames that take you beyond merely hunting for hidden items. Activating the stargates, I mean magic portals, themselves via simple logic games, connecting to orbitting GPS satellites by uncrossing links in a chain, drawing symbols to unlock secret messages from aliens, etc.
Where Portals to the Unknown excels is the simple but effective animations between areas. Veronica exploring, solving puzzles, etc. There's also a lot of nifty video effects on display: from spinning, shimmering portals to background animations inside the disordered scenes themselves. Unlike some other hidden object games that drop cluttered room after cluttered room on the player, there's a real sense of movement and momentum to Veronica's explorations. The actual graphics of the items and backgrounds themselves are decent enough... but a bit clip-arty and not as high quality as standouts like Mystery Case Files: Madame Fate.
Dragon Altar Games, you almost convinced me that you were native English speakers... until you started using "evidences" as a plural for evidence. That's like saying "Look, I'm wearing five jewelries!" or "Wow, the street is full of traffics!"
It's crazy talk!
Download Veronica Rivers: Portals to the Unknown