Apparently tracking down Bigfoot is more frustrating than it is fun.
Share
By Ned Jordan
Bigfoot: Hidden Giant casts you in the role of a Sasquatch enthusiast excited by recent Bigfoot sightings at a nearby national park. That's the promised premise, at least. The truth is the story plays out more like an investigative reporter's crusade to chase down illegal corporate toxic waste disposal. It's not that big of a deal, but there's surprisingly little Bigfoot here for a game with 'Bigfoot' in the title. The 'Hidden' in the title is accurate, though, as you make your way through the game by completing hidden object puzzles.
The play in the game is pretty much standard for a hidden object game - static scene, list of objects, tap on objects in scene. While hidden object games are not necessarily my first choice when it comes to allocating my game play time, I have been known to enjoy playing a good one. Unfortunately, there are a number of annoying things with Bigfoot: Hidden Giant that prevent it from being a hidden object that I would put in that 'good one' category. First of all, I found it annoying that the game doles out the objects that you need to find four at a time. If there's an object that's giving you a little trouble, it will be stuck on your list for a bit stubbornly holding on to its slot and making it more difficult for you to just ignore it for a bit while looking for other items. Furthermore, that object might not even be on the screen that you're currently searching and the game doesn't give you any indication that there are adjacent screens and how to navigate to them. Each time I'd reach a new screen I'd have to blindly tap around the edges of the screen to determine if there was another one adjacent to the current one. Also, one of those objects sitting on your list may not even be findable until you complete a couple of other actions making it really annoying when you waste your time looking for something that you can't possibly find at the moment. And all of these issues aren't helped by the fact that hit detection is really lousy, oftentimes requiring a series of taps even when you've located the right object.
Rounding out the hidden object play is the occasional mini game puzzle. These are all pretty standard for the genre and pretty easy to solve - jigsaws, match three games, etc. They feel like they were added more for variety's sake than for adding additional challenge to the game.
Overall, I would probably consider Bigfoot: Hidden Giant to be pretty standard for the genre if it weren't for the poorly designed hidden object puzzles. As it stands, it should probably be left to the hidden object obsessed, with those who enjoy the occasional hidden object game looking to better games with which to spend their time.
