Game: Enigmatis: The Mists of Ravenwood

A direct sequel to Enigmatis: The Ghosts of Maple Creek, Enigmatis: The Mists of Ravenwood lets us put on the detective badge once again in a wonderful tale of intrigue and hidden object adventuring. On her continued search for the demonic preacher who eluded her at the end of the last game, our fearless detective comes across a frightened young girl named Becky at the edge of a campground. The detective's search for the little girl's parents ultimately leads her into the happy and idyllic campgrounds of Ravenwood, although everything is certainly not as it seems before long: from the oh-so-cheery camp workers, to the way the world seems to shift into darkness at regular turns, and of course, let's not forget the barrels of dead bodies and giant shadowy raven that tends to stop by from time to time.The game's presentation is particularly top-notch, with wonderfully painted visuals and smooth animations, not to mention impressive 3D character models that work like magic in the many engrossing cutscenes. What's great about this game is that The Mists of Ravenwood completely owns up to its rustic campground setting, and everything beyond it makes logical sense within the overall constraints of its own uniquely crafted world. Areas like the logging cabins, a giant tree that you can walk inside of, and even a short detour to the rocky beach below all feel realistic and connected, and you'll never veer off into that oversaturated futuristic temple that seems to make an appearance at the end of almost every hidden object adventure game these days."The Mists of Ravenwood does a lot of things that go the extra mile towards making the overall experience feel like so much more than your typical hidden object adventure. The most welcome of these features are in the deductions that your character can make by strategically placing found pieces of evidence on an investigative bulletin board of sorts (you are a detective after all!). While it's really just a matter of dragging the different evidence items over one of the various plot point circles until you find a match, it's still an extremely nice way of advancing the plot and giving players a nice refresher course at regular intervals as to what the underlying mysteries are.