Publisher: Big Fish Games

Platform: Mac OS X (Universal)

System: G3 400 MHz, 128 MB RAM

Price: $20

This is a casual puzzle game. The objective is to find the hidden objectives in the picture. Theme is that you are searching the world for clues as you get ready for your expedition to Mt Everest.

There are four main areas: South America, Europe, Asia and Everest. Each area has about 8 locations. A level consists of visiting two or three locations and finding 9 items in each location. At the end of each level there is an additional puzzle: a jigsaw puzzle or a "look for x of the same item" puzzle.

It's a race against three other teams. Along the bottom of the screen is a track showing the progress of each team for that level. As far as I can tell it doesn't matter if you come in last other than at the end of the game you end up in last place -- but you can still finish the game.

For each level you have three or four hints. Click hint, click an item you're looking for and the item will be circled. It's a big circle but the item is in the middle of it so not so much a hint as the answer for one item. Each location has five gems and if you find all the gems for a location you get an additional hint. Hints are quite important as there is often an item or two that is really hard to find.

Once you've been to a location you've seen it. The picture is static and every possible hidden item is in the picture. Only the gems are moved around, though there are only so many gem spots. Upshot is that if you do a location a few times you start to remember where items are. The item list you look for is randomized so even in the same game you'll occasionally look for an item twice at the same location.

The list of things you're looking for can be a bit tricky. "Spade" can mean the spade symbol of a deck of cards or the small-shovel tool. Sometimes you're looking for the shape as a shadow or smoke rather than the item itself. And there are several versions of any item -- so lots of different stars.

Graphics: good.

Sound: good.

Game play: good.

Bad things:

1. It's very processor intensive and slow. I'm using a 2.16 GHz Core Duo and mouse movement is slightly laggy. You really notice it when doing jigsaw puzzles.

2. Not enough spare room in jigsaw puzzles. Pretty much the puzzles pieces are on the playing area so you're constantly moving them around to look.

3. Once you figure out that there is no "death" (i.e. you can play as long as you like and eventually finish the game) you might lose the sense of challenge. I guess this makes it a more relaxed game.

Overall I liked the game. Took me about three hours to finish it the first time and 2-1/2 hours to finish it the second time (by the game clock, longer than that if counting inter-level time). Not sure if it's worth $20 due to the somewhat lack of replay value.