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Gotcha: Celebrity Secrets
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Graphics & Sound:
Gotcha: Celebrity Secrets uses bright and colorful graphics and hip music to convey its feel. Gaby is the character you play, as she works her way towards celebrity gossip blogger extraordinaire, and you'll get used to seeing doe-eyed/ puffed lipped starlets and handsome rock stars, but the folks who populate the hidden object scenes you'll be poring over can take all shapes and sizes. From the chick with the purple Afro to the goth kid, even to the Ozzy Osborne look-a-like, they have all kinds here. Yes, even vampires, zombies and cupids sometimes litter the Hollywood scenes you'll be working.
The background music is catchy and the sound effects are playful. There's nothing here to warrant you turning down the volume and, in fact, Geck0 asked me to turn it up so he could hear the music at his desk while I was playing. Overall, Gotcha: Celebrity Secrets is an A+ presentation.
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Gameplay:
Gotcha: Celebrity Secrets is a pretty different casual game than what I am used to playing, but I really enjoyed it. You play as Gaby, celeb gossip blogger wannabe, out to climb your way up the Internet's popularity ladder and defeat the current celeb gossip king, Dante. Doing so means digging up the dirt on your favorite celebs and you have the help of a secret informer to help you do it. You will work your way through 5 chapters each having 10 levels and these levels mostly consist of "Where's Waldo" type pictures where you have to locate certain people, but there are also goals where you have to snap photos of celebs for your blog, put pictures or documents back together, solve puzzles and identify differences between two pictures. In each of the hidden object pictures, you'll have a certain number of people to locate and either a picture of that person or an outline of them or even just a description will be located at the bottom of the screen. For each person you find, they disappear (and tell you a little tidbit of info, sometimes helpful) and at the bottom, are replaced by the next person you need to locate until you find them all. There are also yellow stars scattered about that will earn you more hints, plus little pocket watches that add to your time limit. Finally, in each picture, Gaby is lurking somewhere, plus either the celeb focus of that chapter or something that links to them, like a baby bottle or a record. Clicking on these give you bonus points which help push you up the ladder to super status among the celebrity bloggers.
The chapters include a rocker/starlet wedding, the birth of a superstar couple's child (Tedronica's baby - sound at all like Brangelina?), a boy band's reunion, a starlet getting some work done and finally, a love triangle between two leading ladies and the man they both want. All of the topics could be ripped straight from today's celeb headlines and watching the stories unfold is fun. I liked how they incorporated your need to grab some photo shots of the bride in her dress, as she pops her head out of various areas and you are distracted by her bodyguards. Then in some instances, you'd have to piece together a ripped up VIP pass in order to gain access to backstage and you'd do this by moving around pieces of the picture until the full image comes into place.
Completing levels earns you medals, which you can upload to the PlayFirst website. Also, with the money you earn, you can purchase new skins and doodads to modify the look of Gaby's blog. That didn't appeal to me as much as the puzzles themselves, but the game itself definitely is one of those "just one more level before I go to sleep" types.
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Difficulty:
Gotcha: Celebrity Secrets doesn't have a difficulty level. The game just gets more difficult as you progress, but never to the point that you'd turn it off in frustration. After all, it is a casual game and it's meant to be fun - which it definitely is! As you work your way through the chapters, things will start to get more difficult. In the hidden object scenes, the people will get smaller and the areas more populated. Further, you'll get more distractions. In the beginning, it might be a tour bus that pulls up from time to time, but by the end, you've got heavy rain, steam, balloons, bodyguards and all kinds of stuff there to make your job tougher. In fact, in the final level, you only have some 10 seconds to see the group of people and select your possible secret informers. Then the curtain closes and a new batch of people show up. It certainly was something different and really kept me on my toes.
During some of the hidden object scenes, you might only have a small area lit up as if you are using a spy glass. Still others, the house lights may go up and down, forcing you to look quickly. They are always throwing something new at you, so it keeps it very fresh.
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Game Mechanics:
Gotcha: Celebrity Secrets is a nice blend of the various genres of hidden object and puzzle reconstructing (is that even a genre?) and it's the perfect casual game to appeal to a girl who loves to follow Hollywood gossip. You can blaze through the game relatively quickly, but not so quickly that you feel like you didn't get your money's worth. Everything is done by the click of the mouse, so it's very user-friendly to anyone with any experience with casual games and the game's trendy feel is fun and makes you anticipate what new dirty secret you'll be unlocking. While you will need some coordination to snap really good pictures of those tricky celebs, the hidden object areas merely require good spotting skills and some patience, plus a hint here and there doesn't hurt! Anyone with a mind for puzzles will enjoy the scrambled picture levels and there's enough variety here to please any casual game fan. If you have doubts, you can check out the 1 hour free demo link below, but once I started playing, I couldn't stop until I beat it. Fun game!
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-Psibabe, GameVortex Communications AKA Ashley Perkins |
Minimum System Requirements:
OS: Windows 7/XP/Vista, CPU: 1.2 GHz, RAM: 256 MB, Screen Resolution: 800 x 600 minimum, DirectX: 9.0, Hard Drive: 135 MB, Sound Card Recommended. |
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Test System:
Windows Vista, 2 GHz AMD Phenom 9500 Quad-Core Processor, 8GB RAM, Realtek High Definition Audio On-Board Sound, NVIDIA GeForce 8300 |
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Related Links:
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