Reflections of Life: Equilibrium Collector's Edition

I didn't enjoy playing this game for the simple reason it had a faulty soundtrack - two tracks playing at the same time and long silent periods with no sound at all except the eeyore of the hint button. The achievements were ridiculous - finish in 5 hours, but spend 15 minutes on a puzzle - and were not easy to see. It was overlong with a brilliant start diminishing to collecting objects and frustrating puzzles Glad I bought it on offer

OK, I never leave reviews normally, but with the mostly positive reviews here, I thought I had better leave one for anyone like me. To start, I love HOGs and I have suffered through a number of middling ones and still found some enjoyable game-play in them. This is the first one I have ever played that truly infuriated me, to the point where I uninstalled it as soon as I finished. I really wanted to like it, too! I had played a couple others in the series already and really liked them, but this one was padded out with a ton of poorly-explained, non-intuitive puzzles that took up time and detracted from the story and any sense of urgency. The in-game guide is practically useless for solutions, as well. There were precious few actual HOGs, which is obviously the actual draw to these games. Making a longer game is usually a good thing, but if it is full of something you aren't enjoying, it pulls you out and leaves you frustrated instead of relaxed. So, while this would be a good one for anyone looking to kill 6-9 hours on a variety of puzzle and strategy games, if you're looking for a relaxing story with soothing music and scavenger hunts, you probably should look elsewhere. The scene…

The play time was a generous 6 hours which is significant for HOGs. The story was very interesting and the additional chapters kept it going. The art was reasonable for the most part but a few animations were truly awful. The interface was very well designed.

This is probably the best hidden object game that I have played. Different mini games, nice and long and the extras were also longer than normal. Really enjoyed it.

Meh.

This is [I]Reflections of Life[/I] #2. It's clunky, wonky, inconsistent, and garish, and somehow still a fun game. You'll start by being overwhelmed by the extremely saturated colors and dense graphic design. The UI is frustrating and non-intuitive—I still can't tell which achievements I got and which I didn't. You'll find the point-and-click adventuring obtuse and click-sensitive. And there's a story in there, but good luck taking any of it seriously. Then there are puzzle mini-games, some of which are clever and satisfying, but then others are trivial. Worst, there are some mouse-movement-precision mini-games that every gamer hates. And yet ... this glittering mess somehow coalesces into a nice little adventure across different worlds with some cool puzzles. Sometimes you'll roll your eyes, and sometimes you'll be very annoyed. But, if you enjoy this genre you will find a diamond-in-the-rough here.