Looking For a Spooky Time?

Than you've come to the right place, my friend! Mortimer Beckett and the Secrets of Spooky Manor will send more than a few chills up your spine, especially if you're brave enough to play it late at night, in the dark, when you're all by your lonesome.

Playing the game, you'll follow innocent, average joe Mortimer Beckett, who's been summoned to his great uncle's mansion after not seeing him for over twenty years. All Mortimer remembers of his uncle's mansions are the piles of mysterious old books and the even more mysterious contraptions that his uncle was constantly tinkering with. Summoning up all the courage his feeble body can hold, our hero is off to visit his eccentric uncle in his spooky mansion.

Mortimer's uncle writes off his latest invention, although he skimps on the details. He claims that "they" have stolen crucial parts and he needs your help in tracking them all down and getting the machine to run.

Find and Seek At Its Best

I have played a lot of find and seek games, believe me. I don't intentionally look for them, I simply surf the web, devouring any and all games I find, and it just so happens that a large percentage of those games are, in fact, of the seek and find variety. Now, I do enjoy this type of gameplay; I really do. However, even the things you love grow tiring after a while.

That being said, Mortimer Beckett and the Secrets of Spooky Manor completely blew my socks off. They take traditional, time-tested I spy gameplay and add in all new elements that make it an absolute blast to play, even if you've had your fill of this type of gameplay.

For starts, you don't find whole objects. Each object is split up into pieces and you have to find each individual piece in order to reconstruct it (which happens automatically). This makes the gameplay much more difficult, but not frustratingly so. After you've collected all the pieces of an item and successfully slapped it back together, you'll have to take the whole item and place it back into the picture. In order to figure out where it goes, you simply have to use common sense. For example, in the first level, I had to place a butterfly into a case of other butterflies.

Some objects, however, will trigger certain "actions" that will take you to the next level. In the first level, I had to give a wine bottle to a tipsy ghost, who in return opened a door for me.

As you can see, these aren't simple "twists" that other games claim to have. These additions seriously alter the gameplay and make for a fantastic, fun-filled experience.

A Must Buy

Mortimer Beckett and the Secrets of Spooky Manor is just dripping with cool atmosphere and haunting presentation. If that's not at all, it's one of the most satisfying games I've played in as long as I can remember. If you're looking for a good way to spend your time, you've found it.