Twin Moons HD
Score: 89% ESRB: 9+ Publisher: G5 Entertainment Developer: Cateia Games Media: Download/1 Players: 1 Genre: Adventure/ Puzzle/ Puzzle (Hidden Object)
Graphics & Sound: Twin Moons HD is yet another adventure/ hidden object game from Cateia Games, a developer who seems to be churning out these games at a rate of one every few weeks. Because of this, I find myself becoming a much more competent adventure game player. Twin Moons HD places you in the role of Jack, an amnesiac who awakens following a car accident hoping to get some answers about his mysterious past. The locations you'll explore, which encompass areas in and around the Twin Moons Research Facility, look good and convey an eerie sense of mystery and gloom. The items you'll need to pick up to progress in your quest are well hidden and look like they should. I did find the animations of the characters you'll encounter to be a bit odd, however. At times, the voiceovers didn't synch up to the animations and each character would return to a peculiar state of being "at rest," sometimes before they were even finished talking. It was disconcerting and showed a lack of polish, something I typically don't see in Cateia Games' releases. That being said, the voiceovers were pretty good, whether you were talking to your fiancée Maggie, the other members of the research facility, or even the menacing Lucian Feer, the money behind the research facility. The background music was fantastic and really worked well to creep you out. The song that plays as you are setting up your game or during the menus reminded me a lot of Bear McCreary's theme for The Walking Dead series, while the other tunes slinked around in the background of the game, causing chills to creep up your spine as they played.
Gameplay: Twin Moons HD is mostly adventure, but you'll have to search around the locations for items to progress your search for the truth about what happened at the Twin Moons Research Facility. As Jack, you are trying to piece together what happened many years before, and as you begin to unravel the mystery, it seems far more sinister things were going on than appeared. You'll find yourself blocked at every turn, so you'll rely on your wits and keen sense of observation to collect the objects needed to open up the paths before you. Instead of hidden object scenes, you'll find a corpse that you need to move, but can't touch, or a hole with a mouse who is guarding some treasure that you need to find a way to extract, even a cryptic puzzle built into a wall. As you realize your quest is literally a matter of life and death and the fate of the world rests in your hands, you'll solve puzzles in the hopes of stopping the destruction of life as we know it.
Difficulty: Twin Moons HD can be played on three difficulty settings: Casual, Adventure and Challenge. Casual Mode provides you with sparkles to indicate active areas where something can be done, a fast Hint and Skip recharge and your objectives are marked for you on a map. Adventure Mode takes away the sparkles and fast Hint/Skip recharge, but leaves your objectives marked on your map. Challenge is exactly that - you play the game on your own without even the assistance of your objectives being marked on your map. Twin Moons HD has some tricky puzzles, but most of it is standard fare. As always, there's a Hint button in case you can't figure out where to go next or what to do next, and if you find yourself stumped by a particular puzzle, you can always choose the Skip option. Using the Skip button will cause the puzzle to immediately solve, then explode into fragments, which was quite amusing. You will also miss out on some Achievements by skipping a puzzle. While items are cleverly hidden and you will definitely have to use your head to make sure you don't miss something along the way, I never found it so taxing as to be frustrating.
Game Mechanics: Twin Moons HD has a really interesting story and because of that, they have some clever puzzles and gameplay ideas. Puzzles include the usual stuff like rotating pipes, assembling broken pictures, slider puzzles and key code computations, but they also have some fun stuff involving constellations, code breaking and Roman numeral calculation. Something I found rather unique was the Combiner, where you would encounter an area that you needed certain items in order to progress. The Combiner would appear, fanning out circles containing the silhouettes of the items you needed. If you had some of the items, you could load them in and come back later with the rest of the items. It helped to give you an idea of what you needed to be on the lookout for and I enjoyed the atypical game mechanic. As always, you have the footprint icon which shows you areas on the screen you can visit. By clicking on the map, you can see each area represented by a circle and they will contain a question mark if you haven't yet visited them, an X if you are currently in that location and an exclamation point if they are the next area in which you have an objective or can in some way progress the story. I did find times when I knew there were several areas that had things for me to do or pick up, but only one exclamation point would show up at a time. However, by tapping on the area with the exclamation point, then tapping the arrow in the upper left hand corner which shows a thumbnail of that area, you can fast travel, so it saves loads of backtracking. Twin Moons HD is a great adventure game, with only a few drawbacks. It even has two separate endings based on the choice you make for the final puzzle, so there's a reason to go back and play it a second time. Naturally, this will be a quick run because you'll pretty much know what you need to do. I loved both endings and even discovered several notes I had missed in my first playthrough, which made it even more rewarding to read back through the logbook that keeps track of your goals. If you like adventure games, check out Twin Moons HD.
-Psibabe, GameVortex Communications AKA Ashley Perkins
Related Links: Twin Moons HD | iTunes
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