Dark Dimensions: City of Fog Game Review

I love video games. Specifically, I love playing role-playing games like Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy. Since the first time I played Final Fantasy 1 on NES in the early nineties, I’ve been hooked. So far I’ve managed to play the entire series up to FFX. My PlayStation 2 is in storage and I’m waiting to get a PlayStation 3 for myself for Christmas to play the rest.

For about two years, though, I’ve been delving into a completely different genre of games: Hidden Object. The purpose of these games is to find a list of objects in the game scenes. When I first started playing this type of game, you only needed to find the objects in order to unlock other levels in the game. However, the genre has advanced and now certain objects you find must be used in other areas of the game in order to advance.

Last night, I played a fairly new game called Dark Dimensions: City of Fog. The game was created by Daily Magic Productions and released by Big Fish Games. I played the Collector’s Edition which includes bonus content like extra game play, wallpapers, and sound clips of the music played in the game.

The story line revolves around a cursed city called Silvertowne. In the early 1800s, a young girl named Lillian was set to marry the son of the town’s richest family. Just days before her wedding, however, she dies mysteriously. The tragedy of her death causes Silvertowne to be enveloped into a fog that traps it and its residents in limbo.

Dark Dimensions: City of Fog opens with a cut scene of an obsessed man who is upset that Lillian is marry someone else. When the game starts, you are standing just outside of town. Clicking on a journal in your car reveals your back story.

When you were a child, you lost your family in a tragic accident car accident. You are the only survivor. Since then, you have been attracted to the paranormal. Out of the blue you received a mysterious letter directing you to check out Silvertowne. The death of Lillian caused the town to fall into a Dark Dimension. You are tasked with finding out what happened and setting things right.

I found Dark Dimension: City of Fog to be your typical Hidden Object game. In addition to the usual hidden objects mini games, you also solve puzzles. Many of these puzzles are missing pieces that you will find around town. I didn’t find the puzzles to be particularly challenging. However, what I did find annoying is that instructions for the puzzles were few and far between. You are left to guess what you need to do to solve some of them.

The Hidden Object mini games do deviate from the norm in that some require you to combine items in order to create an item on the list. For example, in the first Hidden Object mini game you play, you must attach a watch chain to a watch in order to clear the item from the list.

The artwork is decent and the soundtrack is easy to listen to. The game has several cut scenes in which you actually talk to the ghosts left behind who provide information about Lillian’s situation. These would have been enjoyable to watch had it not been for the game’s performance.

I don’t know if it was my computer or the game itself but the game ran slow. I’ve played other games from Big Fish Games before with no performance problems so I’m inclined to think it was the game. After awhile it got to be very annoying to do even the simplest thing in the game. By the time I made it to end, my level of frustration was so high that I didn’t even bother to play the bonus game content. If it weren’t for that, I would be inclined to give the game higher marks.

If you are able to get the game to run efficiently on your machine then Dark Dimensions: City of Fog is a decent time waster. Big Fish Games offers a free hour of game play so you can test how it will do on your machine before you fork over the $13.99 to buy it. Otherwise, there are other great games available that are much better and have no issues with performance. I’ll be reviewing those in the coming weeks.

Talk to me in the comments. What games have you played lately that you enjoyed?

I Give This Game:  

Buy Dark Dimension: City of Fog Collector’s Edition

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