PSYCH

by LEGACY GAMES; GLOBAL PLAY; BIGFISH GAMES

PSYCHIC CRIME

Story:   Welcome to the wacky world of the hit television series, Psych! When a prominent planner is murdered at a local wedding expo, Shawn and Gus jump in to help out the Santa Barbara Police Department. But it turns out the murderer is just getting started! Use Shawn’s heightened observational skills and Gus’ eccentric expertise to solve the crime in this hilarious Hidden Object game! (BigFish Sales Blurb)

Desktop:   Menu (Left); Pjus’s Inventory/Shawn’s Memory (Centre); Hint (Right).   

Options: Basic.

Music:   This becomes rather irritating after a while – I turned it right down.

Play Modes:   Easy; Casual; Expert.

Map:    None – so lots of Back & Forth/ Point & Click.

Graphics:   Well designed; good layouts; colourful – suits crime locations.

HOPs:   Interactive but straight-forward.  Graphics okay for these, but seem to recall some of the items being rather small.

Puzzles:   These took the form of Evidence processing – I think – I didn’t make any notes of this which is unusual.

Collections:   None – other than evidence in usual game-play manner.

Game-play:   The game opened stright into the game, then belatedly the characters were introduced.  Because you go into Shawn’s memory, you merely click on the Items to lock their image into his part of the Inventory Bar, rather than actually collecting them. Although the game-play is rather disjointed, and consequently frustrating, not to mention far less sophisticated than other Crime games like CSI and NCIS, it does draw you in.  You can use Hint to show you the next needed site if you get lost due to lack of Map and Info.  Also the concept of the real Inventory and the Memories is a little tricky to sort out – the problem is knowing when to use which inventory, and this causes confusion.  This gradually settles down.

Player Participation:   Due to lack of Map this is quite full-on, but not in a good way – just lots of going Back & Forth as mentioned which is tiring.

Satisfaction Factor:   I think it’s fair to say that I didn’t find it very satisfying at all.

Frustration Factors:   An under-supply of story info causes confusion and frustration; the lack of a Map is frustrating and so is the repetitive Music.

I was debating whether to use a Game Coupon to get this, or whether it’s just not good enough but I’ve now decided on the latter.  It really doesn’t live up to the other Crime games, and is just too basic to hold my interest.  Give the trial a try by all means.

Jud House 1/07/2014

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