The Esoterica: Hollow Earth

I just finished playing this game for the second time. This time for the cheevos. I was able to get all except for the video cards achievement. The last video card was there as you open the last puzzle. My problem was that the puzzle opened before I was able to take the card. It's a good game with challenging puzzles, except for this last bug. I am Very disappointed.

Wowza. Such potential for this game with a sorta Indiana Jones theme that does so well and then...stops. Actually, numerous things stop. For some reason halfway through the game the voice acting stopped (thank goodness the music worked and I had text on screen), the back half of the puzzles became excessively buggy to the point I could not complete a mosaic puzzle and had to click the damned 'skip' button thereby missing the achievement. Previously closing the game and reopening it fixed most issues but this one tested my patience big time. So, the final thing that stopped was the story because blink and you'd miss the sweeping resolution for everything in the space of 15 seconds and credits roll. Felt a bit of a cop out when you were just getting invested in the characters, and up until that point I was really enjoying the story (hindered by those bugs grr). Puzzle mix was good, hidden objects fine, music was terrific but overall the game ruined by bugs and a forgettable ending. Damn.

Imaginative plot based on the hollow earth legend. The game is casual in every way. No stress and mostly relaxing. I like hidden object games. What I don't like about hidden object games are the timed achievements. This game has only one, which is a positive for me. Overall it is entertaining.

Despite nice graphics and music, as well as flavorful cut-scenes, this casual point-and-click adventure is underwhelming. The story is poorly constructed and often silly, and many of the mini-game puzzles are just tedious rather than clever.

Not a good HOG. While the Hidden Object puzzles are as fun as in almost any other game of the type, the mini-games are what lets the side down here. Some of them are unnecessarily time-consuming; it's clear what you have to do it just takes ages. Some are really unclear as to what the goal is and in what way you need to manipulate to the tools in order to succeed. And others just require a trial & error approach. If you're the type of person who refuses to use the skip or hint functions in these games then this one will drive you up the wall. Plus the storyline is really dull. It may be one of the cheaper games of the type, but there's a good reason for that: It's one of the worst.

This is a fun game for the sheer campiness of the time period sci-fi tropes, characters, and story. Kudos to the writers for pulling off the old style feel and art. Also, I enjoyed the HO scenes, and having to look for really old-fashioned stuff (telephones, for example). There are some definite cons, however. I was very disappointed not to be able to complete my 100% run through thanks to a couple of slightly buggy and/or oversensitive puzzles. It's not that I couldn't solve the puzzles - most are honestly too easy - but one puzzle refused to respond to the solution in my first run-through, and when I tried again, that puzzle worked but a different puzzle just would *not* "finish" and click into place. Speaking of the puzzles, I never want to connect the dots for that stupid helicopter blueprint ever again. Maybe it's straightforward with a different input method, but with a mouse it's tedious beyond words. Bottom line? I had fun, and then I got frustrated. I'm still recommend...

It came in a 6-games bundle. Graphics and story aren't bad at all and, a couple of puzzles are original. Main complains are about the help system, which helps nothing and, a lack of some sort of map to fast travelling to sensible areas. Sensible objects areas are a bit fuzzy. You can find yourself clicking over an object and, the game doesn't see your are clicking over it. Average game

Artwork: 8/10 Graphics: 8/10 Map: no HOS: classic, find-by-shape, not much Puzzles: few but sometimes mind-boggling

Apologies to Alawar Stargaze but I cannot recommend this game. I really wanted to like it but I ran into too many issues with the game play. Visually it is beautiful and I like the arc of the storyline. [list] [*]The 1920's art deco concept of the game is very well executed. [*]The artwork for the locations, hidden object games and mini-games is beautiful. [*]Some of the mini-games are [i]extremely[/i] tedious. [*]I found three of the mini-games to be really cool with rotating elements in offset positions that needed to be aligned carefully. [*]Some of the hidden object games have bad clues - like "watering can" when it should be "funnel". [*]One of the hidden object games has a show-stopper issue if you are unlucky enough to get an impossible object - (the bottle in the storage locker). [*]Some of the hidden object hot spots are very difficult to hit or are in counter-intuitive locations relative to the image on the screen. Alawar should issue a patch to address this issue - hour gla...

I am a big fan of HOG but this game was a disapointment. Had the potential to be a great game but a few things screwed it. After a while playing the video scenes didnt have a voice anymore atleast we have it written but it felt incomplete. The story started interesting even more after you played as another character and learned even more but it got more and more complicated and boring. A few HO scenes were buggy where I had to clicka few times that it would register but the thing that killed the game for me and stopped me from finishing it was a problem which a few people seem to have. The "BOTTLE" problem. In a HO scence you have to find a bottle which isnt that hard to find but it wont register you clicking it even after reopening the game. I read that it could fix the problem after restarting the game but it is at a part of the game wher you are already far into it (around 2 hours playtime) adn i dont want to start it from all over again. If you dont have the problem and are an a...