Game review: Haunted Hotel

Haunted Hotel is basically a hidden object game. However, between each hidden object level, there are a variety of mini-games you need to play before you can move onto the next level. The mini-games range from catching energy balls to a match three game to moving pieces of rope so they don't overlap and more. I had fun playing the hidden object parts of the game. In each location, there are three bonus items you can find that will give you additional time. These bonus items are not named, like the rest of the objects. You have to match the shadow with the item. As for the regular list of items, they are just difficult enough to make the game fun but not so difficult that you get aggravated.

The mini-games, however, are another story altogether. Personally, I'm not very good at the rope game. I never have been. So it annoyed me that I had to spend a lot of time trying to figure it out and there isn't any way for me to skip it. Most of the other mini-games aren't particularly difficult, they are just annoying. Especially if you downloaded the game aiming for a hidden object game.

As a whole, Haunted Hotel wasn't bad. It would just be nice if we could skip past the mini-games and move to the hidden object games. I understand why they were put there but they are completely unnecessary.

Game review: Coffee Rush

Coffee Rush is a weird sort of mash up between a time management game and a match-three game. Your customers come up to the counter and request a specific drink. In order to make the drink, you need to collect a certain amount of each ingredient. The ingredients are collected by matching three like items in a row. Once all of the ingredients for a drink are collected, you click on the drink to serve it to the customer. I found this game to be extremely annoying. Mostly because there are certain ingredients that are impossible to collect, which results in ticked off customers. If there were more opportunities to match three of an item, it wouldn't be so difficult. For example, the sugar ingredient pops up all the time so you can have tons of sugar. However, the whipped cream item doesn't pop up very often so if your customer wants something with whipped cream, they will have to wait a long time for three of that item to come together.

This is definitely an interesting concept for a game. I wouldn't mind seeing more of these sorts of mash ups between different types of genre. However, the developers need to make the games fair. If you're going to force us into creating recipes with specific amounts of specific ingredients, give us the tools to make it happen. Don't let the player flap in the wind, hoping that what they need pops up now before the customer storms off.