On Assignment

In City Sights: Hello, Seattle, you play as a photojournalist for CitySights magazine. Just coming off of a shoot you did in San Diego, your editor wants you to fly to Seattle and profile the city. You can't really say no to your boss, and really, who would say no to free travel? You depart for the rainy city right away, excited for what Seattle may have in store.

Seeing the Sights

Your first stop is the famous rotating wonder, the Space Needle. After that you'll make your way through the entire city, seeing various sights and finding hidden objects at each location. The settings are fantastic looking and, like so many beautiful hidden objects games, will give you the urge to travel. Most locations are colorful and vibrant and the objects are seamlessly blended in with the background. It can be tricky to find certain things, to be sure, but at least you'll be enjoying what you're looking at.

Being Good at your Job

City Sights: Hello, Seattle handles contains just the right amount of challenge. Each stage has three separate lists of items, each for a different difficulty level. I don't think I've seen a game work this way before, but I really enjoyed it. Usually, the hidden objects games that I play have one flat difficulty level that spans the entire game, making the experience either too easy or near impossible. This way, I was given the best of both worlds. I found certain items right away, which ensured that I was having fun immediately, but other items tested my skills like they haven't been tested before.

Some levels will only have objects in one list, but even if you do run across the occasional stage that is either too easy or too hard, you know the next stage will be different and the overall experience will balance out.

This alone sets this game apart from the crowd and makes it very easy to recommend, to both the novice and the expert.

Achieving your Goals

I love games that give you goals to meet in addition to just completing the game. Fortunately for me, this product has a boatload of them. Each stage has optional goals for you to achieve, including three core goals found in each level. You're rewarded for completing an area in under five minutes, for doing it without using hints, and for not getting any penalty clicks. Once you meet these goals so many times, you'll start to earn trophies.

Some stages have exclusive tasks as well, such as finding so many instances of a certain object. These additional goals really add to the life of the product and make it a lot more fun.

Come See the Sights

City Sights: Hello, Seattle is a great game. It's a lot of fun and it's absolutely packed with things to do, so much that it will keep you busy for a good while. To top it all off, it acts as a virtual tour of Seattle, taking you to real locations and giving you fun facts. Don't you deserve a nice vacation?