Big City Adventure: Rome Review – Trevi Good

Ready for the strongest trip to Rome ever? Big City Adventure: Rome lets you experience a tour of some of the city’s most famous sights as seen through the lens of a hidden object game. All you have to do …

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Ready for the strongest trip to Rome ever? Big City Adventure: Rome lets you experience a tour of some of the city’s most famous sights as seen through the lens of a hidden object game. All you have to do is find everything on the list and you move on to the next exciting location. There’s just one catch: who put a miniature Eiffel Tower in the Colosseum?

Big City Adventure: Rome is the old school style of hidden object game that doesn’t mess about with the adventure sections. Instead of searching for items to solve puzzles, you simply hop from place to place and complete HOG scenes without delay. Well, there’s a quick mini-game between locales, but that’s the kind of delay you can love.

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Hidden object scenes are extremely straightforward. A text list of items is at the bottom of the screen. Above is a crowded picture of one of Rome’s famous sights, things like the colosseum or St. Peter’s Basilica. Items are essentially random and have very little to do with their location. They’re also scaled, translucent, re-colored, and otherwise masked. Invisible astronaut floating in the sky? Sure, why not. It’s a very old school tactic for hiding things, and sometimes it can feel a bit arbitrary.

Spicing the hidden object scenes up a bit are blue highlighted items you have to do a little extra work to collect. Each area has one zoomable spot that brings up a smaller section of clutter. This is where the blue items live, separating them out from the rest of the objects so you can focus on a narrower list.

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Between levels you’ll indulge in a quick mini-game to pass the time. These are really simple in nature, diversions presented at their most basic. One is a samegame style matching game using Italian themed tiles, for example, while the other is a plate of spaghetti where you have to turn noodles to create an unbroken line that crosses the plate. Nothing too challenging, just a little bit of fun during your adventure.

Big City Adventure: Rome is basic in every sense of the word. There aren’t any crazy gimmicks thrown at your face, pointless attempts to lengthen the game, or even much of a story to draw you in. This is hidden object gameplay at its purest and simplest. If old school casual item hunts are your thing, or if you can’t get enough of the beauty of Rome, this diversion will keep you busy for dozens of coffee breaks.

The good

  • Simple, straightforward gameplay.
  • No crazy gimmicks to trick you into playing.

The bad

  • Objects are hidden in unusual and often unfair ways.
  • Mini-games are fairly bland.
60 out of 100
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