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Another Hidden Objects game that I'm gonna review on. People who enjoy a nice hidden object game with a nice ambiance and a very good story layout, you are really going to love this game. This was still on the top 10 list on BigFishGames a few weeks ago, it has dropped down to top 20 since the releases of new games.

I was very attracted by the story summary at first, which prompted me to try out the game myself: A group of graduate students has gone missing in Dire Grove. There is a Celtic legend passed down from many generates to generations, considered it to be fairy tale. However, there is this artifact that has just been uncovered in United Kingdom, which proves that the fairy tale may not just be an fairy tale. The group of graduate students stepped foot into Dire Grove, which seems abandoned and ended up missing in the town. So it's now up to the player to uncover the mystery and find out the whereabouts of the students.

What's very different about this Hidden Objects game and the others that I've played in the past is that most of the Hidden Objects just let you go through a lot of different puzzle maps and give you a list of what you need to find. This game, however, instead of being asked to go through lots and lots of lists, you will have to take pick up objects and do something to them to uncover more puzzles and mysteries. Some things are pretty logical, when you completed a hidden objects puzzle, you will get an axe from the puzzle, then later you can use the axe on a pile of wood for firewood and get some warmth from the snow.



Even the start of the game is pretty interesting. After clicking the "PLAY" button on the menu page, instead of going through dialogues like most games does, it straight away starts on the game play. It's quite good in a sense that most people who started out playing a game, they already have some sort of background on it. However, there are still people who just play game without knowing the story, if that's the case, they could only slowly uncover the story, because even if people did homework on this, all they know is that graduate students have gone missing.



What really freaked me out was the screen shot of these when I went around looking for more information of this game before I decided to try it out myself. Turns out when I was playing this is that this is one of the missing students. Throughout the game, video tapes could be found on various maps, if I didn't remember wrongly, there will be a total of 20 to collect, the first tape that player found though, would be the last piece of the whole story. After you have collected all 20 video parts, you would know what happened to these students.

I like horror stories and all, but I'm also one who are scared of this kind of games, else I would have tried F.E.A.R myself. I was very very very curious about the story behind this game, and even though this scene really freaked me out I still forced myself to continue playing. The only thing that is comforting is that this game is actually meant for all ages, so definitely there wouldn't have those ultra scary things that come out to scare the wits out of you.



This is a diary/journal that the in game player would update whenever new things, or something peculiar has been found, so if you quit the game randomly, you could refresh your memory by what reading those that has been updated in the log.

The only amazing part is that when you are at the final stage of the game whereby the "bad thing" is out, the in game player still has the time to update his diary / journal.

This game pretty much gets you involved in it, because even if at times you get very fed up with not being able to find the next step, you would still continue prying for the answer. One thing about this game is that, the map is very big. Since it is the whole town of Dire Grove, there are a lot of places that you need to go to, and most likely it will gets you confused. Well, at least I did since I didn't have a good sense of direction in the first place.



I would give this game a rating of 9/10 because the story is very captivating. The ambiance itself is also very nice and eerie. I couldn't stop myself from play this game once I have started it too.

Read review HERE.
Download game HERE.

This is in the top 10 ranking on BigFishGames now, and it's the popular hidden object genre, whereby you will go around looking for things the game ask you to.

Horror and mysterious games are tend to be in favor now as we see games like Left 4 Dead, DIABLO, F.E.A.R and Silent Hill getting really popular. It seems to also be the case for casual pc games as most of the games on the top ranking are those that has horror themes or mysterious themes. Which also made this to be in the top 10 ranking.

We started off this game as being the apparaiser for this Malgrey castle which has been around for 99 years. Since there isn't any heir to claim this castle, the government will soon obtain the right to sell away this castle. The catch to this is that all the appraisers who have gone to this castle has gone crazy and now you will be the one who will be sent there after one of your close colleagues has gone crazy too. This is the point which makes me really want to try out the game as I'm actually really curious about the story behind it.
























This is the person you will be playing as. As compared to the whole theme and the anticipation of waiting for the vampire to come out, I would say that the character itself looks more freakish than any other things in the game. Oh well.

Most of the time, you will be tasked to find things in a particular room. Or you would be finding pieces of things, such as pieces of maps to go to some place. You would be tasked to find pieces of floor plans at the start of the game.

You would also encounter small puzzle games like this






























































































Small puzzles like this are pretty straight forward. Even if you didn't read the objective, you can click on the red book on the top left hand corner to see the objective again.

Players tend to be irritated when they are stuck at some part of the game or being stuck in this puzzles. There is this button on the top right hand corner that will allow you to skip the puzzle after some time, this is considered a good point for impatient players.

What really got me going for this kind of games are really just the story. I've played few of hidden objects games, I have to say that I wasn't really very into this finding of items. Most of the time I just go very frustrated and irritated because I can't find certain objects yet I want to know what is the story.

There are of course a few hidden object games that are really nice, especially when the story of the game is good. However, I wouldn't really give a high rating for this game though. It's okay for people who like to enjoy playing different kind of puzzle games and if you really just liked hidden object games. If you're the kind that are like me, gets frustrated easily and just ends up clicking everything but are interested in the game, I would recommend you to try other games like the Forgotten Riddles: The Moonlight Sonata, I really love that one.

Vampireville is good in the sense it has many different kind of puzzle games in just one game. You have unlimited hints, but you will have to wait for a while to use it, this is good for people like me who just want to get it over and done with and continue knowing the story. I initially wanted to spend less than 4 hours finishing this, in fact, I expected a 2 hours. Much to my dismay, when I reached chapter 10, I was shocked to realized that it wasn't the end. I was hoping it to be 15 then, and was disappointed. I was sure it will stop at 20. What really amazed me was that it stretched up to chapter 25. The story got boring and I lost my focus of what I'm playing in the end.

This game actually made you to expect that you will be the heir to the castle instead. In the end, the heir ended up to become some other random person.

I would only give this game a rating of 7 out of 10.


























Download free trial HERE.
Read walkthrough HERE.